
Class ^^ i^id_ii)j 
B()ok_ . Q 5- 



GojjyiigM}^^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Psycbology as an Jlid in Ceacbing 

^5* t^* t^^ 
That scientific teaching is impossible without a 
knowledge of Psychology is no longer a debated ques- 
tion. But there is an important question in this con- 
nection which has not yet been answered : WHAT 
BOOK shall the hundreds of thousands of earnest 
teachers study who have not had the advantages of a 
college training ? 

1. Do they need a book which they can understand — 
a book whose apt illustrations bring abstract truths 
within the range of universal comprehension ? 

2. Dp they need a book which makes it clear that 
there are questions which it does not attempt to answer, 
questions that no elementary text-book . can hope to 
answer, and which will thus stimulate them to further 
study and further investigation ? 

3. Do they need a book which is constantly raising 
questions about their minds and the minds of their 
pupils — a book which will make them students of their 
own minds and the minds of their pupils in spite of 
themselves? 

4. Do they need a book which is itself from beginning 
to end a perfect sample of the inductive method of 
teaching, beginning with the simple and the known and 
going to the complex and unknown ? 

5. Do they need a book which thousands of teachers 
have declared was the first to interest them in the study 
of mind ? 

If so, there is one book that will fully satisfy their 
needs. That book is Gordy's New Psychology. 

If you wish to see for yourself whether it possesses 
all of these characteristics send for a copy. It will cost 
you nothing if you do not like it. If you wish to keep 
it the price is ^1.25. 

HINDS & NOBLE 

31-33-35 West I5th Street, - - New York Qty 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY 



EDUCATION 



/ BY 

J; P. GORDY, Ph.D., LL.D. 

PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THE SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY, NEW YORK 

UNIVERSITY. AUTHOR OF GORDY's NEW PSYCHOLOGY, AND POLITICAL 

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 
31-33-35 West 15th Street, New York City 






THE L:BRARV OF 
CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

APR 20 '903 

Copyngl'it tnity 

CLASS <^ XXc. No 

COPY B, 



COPYRIGHT. 1903. BY HINDS & NOBLE. 

Entered at Stationers Hall. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



PREFACE 



This book is written primarily for two classes of read- 
ers : (i) those who, having enjoyed the advantages of col- 
lege or normal-school training, occupy positions which 
make it their duty to shape the educational policy of their 
community ; (2) those who, as students, are preparing for 
such positions. With the needs of these classes in mind, 
it has seemed to the author desirable to set forth as expli- 
citly as might be that in the very conception of education 
certain presuppositions are involved, and all the more de- 
sirable since opinions at variance with these presupposi- 
tions are widely prevalent. 

In the conviction, also, that there can be no fundamental 
study of education that does not seek to ascertain the end 
education should strive to reach, and the impulses and 
capacities it must appeal to, and that there can be no 
rational teaching that is not based on definite notions as to 
these matters, he has endeavored to present upon his con- 
clusions those notions as clearly as may be ; and he has 
sought to base all his recommendations as to practice. A 
prominent feature of the book is the emphasis laid upon 
the doctrine that there is a place for the will in education. 
The current theory inherited from Herbart, and by him 
from Rousseau, that everything should be made to depend 
upon interest, that there should be no must in education, 



PREFACE. 

seems to the author thoroughly pernicious — a theory that 
is prevented from resulting in deplorable consequences 
only by the fact that most of those who profess it do not 
take it seriously. 

While these difficult questions have been discussed pri- 
marily with a view to the needs of the two classes above 
mentioned, the author has had constantly in mind a third 
class — the earnest, enthusiastic, and capable teachers who, 
in characteristic American fashion, are trying to remedy 
the defects of their early education by present arduous 
preparation for their chosen work. To such readers he 
would fain be of service, and to this end has prepared a 
list of questions for each chapter, with the object of helping 
concentrate the attention on the important points. 

The author wishes to make special acknowledgment of 

his indebtedness to Doctors Dewey and Baldwin, and all 

the more because his discussions have emphasized points 

of difference rather than of agreement ; also to his former 

assistant, Dr. Clarke Wissler, for a detailed statement of 

the opinions of those who advocate the postponing of the 

teaching of reading, writing, and drawing until the child is 

ten years of age ; but most of all to Mr. Theodore F. Neu, 

who has revised the manuscript and read the proof, and to 

whose keen intelligence are due many improvements in 

the manner of presentation. 

J. P. GORDY. 
New York University, 
March 31, 1903. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

A Presupposition of Education : Person or Physiological 

Machine 

I. Theory of automatism stated. 2. Nothing is due to pur- 
pose, if automatism be true. 3. From the standpoint of this the- 
ory education has to do with the brain only, not with the mind. 
4. Ordinary facts incapable of clear statement from the stand- 
point of automatism. 5. According to automatism, physical 
causes alone account for all we do. 6. Automatism leaves no 
place for logical thinking. 7. Automatism makes distinctions 
between truth and falsehood impossible. 8. Theory of paral- 
lelism stated. 9. Superiority of parallelism over automatism. 
10. This superiority has no significance from the standpoint of 
education. 11. According to parallelism the relation between 
matter and consciousness is like that between substance and 
shadow. 12. Attempts to do away with the distinction between 
laws of matter and laws of mind. 

CHAPTER II. 

A Presupposition of Education -. Person or Psychological 

Machine 

I. Herbart's theory of the will. 2. Metaphysical difficulties of 
the theory. 3. Educational implications of the theory. 4. It 
does not make a philosophy of education impossible. 5. Conse- 
quences of the theory. 6. Coleridge. 7. Dr. Dewey's theory 
of interest. 8. Self-expression as understood by Dr. Dewey. 
9. Dr. Dewey's confused account of interest. 10. Dr. Dewey's 
attempt to show that interest in an end guarantees an abiding 
interest in the means. 



17 



31 



6 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

PAGE 

Democracy and Education 45 

I. The connection between education and the form of govern- 
ment. 2. The German school system. 3. Professor Peck on 
universal education. 4. Who shall receive a thorough education 
according to Professor Peck ? 5. The relation of education to 
political philosophy. 6. The philosophy of education should 
assume the truth of the republican theory. 7. The effect of 
education on the masses. 8. The dilemma of rulers. 9. Three 
causes that work towards democracy. 10. Progress of the world 
towards democracy. 

CHAPTER IV. \ 

The End of Education as conceived by the Report of the 

Committee of Fifteen 58 

I. The end of education and civilization. 2. Must education 
conform to the principles of a given civilization ? 3. The educa- 
tional statesman. 

CHAPTER V. 

The End of Education as conceived by Mr. Herbert Spen- 
cer and Dr. Dewey 65 

I. Education preparation for rational living. 2. Mr. Spencer's 
description of complete living. 3. Conflict of duties. 4. The 
development of character as the end of education. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The True End of Education 72 

I. The unclearness of the fundamental conceptions of science. 
2. Conclusions as to the end of education not susceptible of 
proof. 3. Things known through lower mediacy. 4. Things 
known through mediacy. 5. Things known through higher im- 
mediacy. 6. Intellectual activity an ultimate good. 7. The ap- 
preciation of beauty another ultimate good. 8. Moral character 
another ultimate good. 9. Friendship and domestic affection 
ultimate goods. 10. Sympathy, also, an absolute good. 11. 
Loyalty an ultimate good. 12. Comparative value of the various 
ultimate goods of life. 13. A standard for judging institutions. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 7 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

Education as Preparation for Rational Living 91 

I. Education and public opinion. 2. Blunder of the old 
Greeks. 3. Mr. Spencer's Theory. 4. The constituents of ra- 
tional living: Knowledge. 5. Intellectual Power. 6. A culti- 
vated emotional nature. 7. An effective will. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The End of Elementary Education 98 

I. Material and intellectual needs. 2. Moral causes of pov- 
erty. 3. Intellectual and moral training compatible. 4. No con- 
flict between the needs of the citizen and of the man. 5. A 
v liberal education and the elementary school. 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Child's Capital: General 105 

I . Begin with the child. 2. The young child and the educated 
man. 3. The child guided by interest. 4. Habits of rational 
conduct. 5. The educational centre of gravity. 6. Curiosity. 
7. The. constructive impulse. 8. The art impulse. 9. The social 
impulse. 10. Imitation. 1 1. Invention. 12. Emulation. 13. The 
ethical impulse. 

CHAPTER X. 

The Child's Capital: Imitation 118 

I. Professor Baldwin on imitation. 2. Imitation defined. 
3. Biological imitation. 4. Psychological imitation. 5. Plastic 
imitation. 6. Imitation of thoughts and feelings. 7. Is educa- 
tion imitation ? 8. Education due to all our impulses. 9. Imi- 
tation and the constructive impulse. 10. Interaction of impulses. 
II. Another interpretation of Professor Baldwin. 12. Imitation 
and intelligence. 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Function of Imitation 131 

I. When the child begins to imitate. 2. When imitation 
exerts the most powerful influence. 3. Influence of heredity on 
imitation. 4. Plastic imitation. 5. Plastic imitation and higher 
immediacy. 6. Signe Rink's childhood. 7. Imitation and 
character. 8. Imitation and reason. 



8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. 

PACiE 

How THE Child's Capital is to be Invested: Imitation . . 141 
I. President Eliot on the public school. 2. Imitation the chief 
source of ideals. 3. Cardinal Newman on imitation. 4. Imita- 
tion and character-building. 5. Imitation during the kinder- 
garten period. 6. Imitation in dress, etc. 7. Influence of the 
child's associates. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

How THE Child's Capital Is to Be Invested: Manual 
Training 150 

I. Curiosity. 2. The constructive impulse. 3. Manual train- 
ing and respect for work. 4. Manual training adapts the school 
to the many. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

How the Child's Capital Is to Be Invested: His Art, So- 
cial, Ethical, and Emulative Impulses 158 

1. The art impulse. 2. The social impulse and language train- 
ing. 3. The social impulse and the moral nature. 4. Rousseau 
and Pestalozzi on moral training. 5. The social impulse and the 
study of history. 6. Intellectual, constructive, art, and social 
impulses contrasted with imitation and emulation. 7. The place 
of emulation in the school. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Course of Study in the Primary Grades 167 

I. The foundation on which the school must build. 2. Read- 
ing and story-telling. 3. Language Lessons. 4. Nature study. 
5. Drawing. 6. Music, physical culture, and manual training. 
7. Number lessons. 8. Distribution of time. 9. Young chil- 
dren's need of supervision. 10. The economic difi&culty. 11, 
Second-year work. 

CHAPTER XVL 

Should Reading and Writing be Taught Before the Age 

OF Ten.' 177 

I. It is argued that reading should not be taught before ten, 
because (i) the function of books is supplementary. 2. (2) Be- 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

cause the child has no " natural desire to learn to read." 3. (3) 
Because reading is a recent accomplishment of the race. 4. (4) 
Because of the development of the nervous system. 5. (5) Be- 
cause the fundamental muscles develop before the accessory. 
6. Objections summarized. 7. Practical argument in favor of 
current practice. 8. Relation between the real and the ideal. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Concentration and Correlation 186 

I. The law of interest. 2. Concentration defined. 3. The 
principle upon which specialization depends. 4. Interest in the 
individual and scientific interest. 5. Interest not a criterion of 
educational method. 6. Cultivation of intellect: Its place in 
education. 7. Training to think. 8. Correlation. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Fetich of General Method 196 

I. General method explained. 2. What determines the valid- 
ity of method. 3. Action of the mind (i) in connection with 
grammar. 4. (2) In connection with history. 5. (3) In connec- 
tion with arithmetic. 6. (4) In connection with literature. 

7. Summing up conclusions relating to the action of the mind 
in connection with grammar, history, arithmetic, and literature. 

8. Possible defence of the Herbartian theory. 9. Three pro- 
cesses not usually required. 10. How psychology may help the 
teacher. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The Grammar School Curriculum 212 

I. Difficulty of mapping out the work through the grades. 
2. Kind of work to be done. 3. History and literature. 4. Bos- 
ton and French and old Athenian schools compared. 5. The 
amount of reading required by Massachusetts schools. 6. Arith- 
metic. 7. Political geography. 8. Nature study. 9. Electives. 
10. Language and grammar. 11. Elemeiats of a liberal educa- 
tion from the start. 



lO TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XX. 

PAGE 

The Most Important Problem of Public School Adminis- 
tration 224 

I. Man and nature the central subjects. 2. Need of adapting 
work to individual students. 3. Why the integrity of the college 
is threatened. 4. Responsibilities of the learned professions. 
5. Do existing conditions discriminate against the poor ? 6. In- 
jury to all grades of schools through disregard of the unequal 
capacity of pupils. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Departmental Instruction in the Grammar School . . . 232 
I. Proposed transformation objected to as impracticable. 2. Is 
the existing system sacred ? 3. The grammar and high school 
compared. 4. Why specialists are not needed through all the 
grades. 5. When the study of facts in their logical relation 
should begin. 6. Advantages of specialization in teaching. 
7. Objections to the existing system. 8. Existing system requires 
teachers to teach subjects in which they are not interested. 



CHAPTER XXII. \ 

The Educational Value of History 241 

I. Educational values and method. 2. History (i) increases 
one's knowledge of himself and his fellows. 3. (2) Develops 
sympathy and charity. 4. (3) Makes us realize that nations, like 
individuals, must act in accordance with moral law. 5. (4) Pre- 
pares for citizenship. 6. (a) By the knowledge it imparts. 7. (b) 
By developing a certain kind of reasoning power. 8. (c) By 
fostering a high civic ideal. 9. The Theory of the Sophists. 
10. Its American counterpart. 11. Children may study history 
with profit. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Educational Value of Spelling, Language Lessons, 

and Grammar 252 

I. Spelling has little educational value. 2. The uses of for- 
gotten knowledge. 3. Conventional value of spelling. 4. What 
words children should be taught to spell. 5. Conventional and 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. II 

PAGE 

real value of the ability to use good English. 6. Language les- 
sons should deepen a child's interest in his work. 7. Grammar 
(i) cultivates the capacity of discrimination. 8. (2) Promotes 
the study of the mind. 9. (3) Should illustrate the difference be- 
tween knowledge and opinion. 10. At what age should grammar 
be studied. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Educational Value of Reading 261 

I. Reading and education. 2. Dr. Harris on " The educa- 
tional value of reading." 3. The educational value of reading 
and observation lessons. 4. Mistakes in the teaching of reading. 
5. Value of the knowledge of real men. 6. How to become ac- 
quainted with a man of thought. 7. Literature in the elementary 
school : Homer and Shakspere. 8. Burns, Lowell, and Holmes. 
9. What literature is available for school purposes. 10. Pleasure 
to be derived from literature. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

The Educational Value of Arithmetic 274 

I, Arithmetic as a science and as an art. 2. Educational . 
value of arithmetic as an art. 3. Arithmetic as an art should 
give definiteness to all our concepts. 4. Two methods of teach- 
ing arithmetic as an art. 5. (i) How arithmetic may give defi- 
niteness to the concepts of elementary science. 6. (2) To the 
concepts of geography. 7. (3) Ideas acquired out of school. 
8. Incidental and accidental teaching of form subjects. 9. Arith- 
metic as a science (i) makes clear the difference between first 
and second-hand knowledge. 10. (2) Different kinds of first- 
hand knowledge. 11. Arithmetic as a science the product of 
deductive reasoning. 12. Too much time given to arithmetic. 
1 3. The grammar school the university of the masses. 



CHAPTER XXVL 

The Educational Value of Nature Study 285 

I. Nature study (i) increases our interest in nature. 2. (2) De- 
velops a realization of law and cultivates openmindness. 3. (3) In- 
^ cites to speciahzation along the lines of natural bent. 



y 



12 TABLE OF CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

PAGE 

School Management 290 

I. The object of discipline. 2. The function of education. 
3. The principle of anarchy. 4. The problem of the school. 

5. The child may learn to love a rational life (i) because he 
wishes to be like his teacher. 6. (2) Because his teacher loves a 
rational life. 7. The influence of imitation on Roman education. 
8. The teacher and the source of the ideals of the pupil. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The Small High School 297 

I. The general principle upon which the proper work of the 
small high school depends. 2. The large high school not a 
model for the small high school. 3. The report of the Commit- 
tee of Ten on the identity of the needs of those who are and 
those who are not going to college. 4. The small high school 
should teach (i) political economy. 5. (2) American history. 

6. But (3) not a foreign language. 7. The course of study of 
the small high school to be determined in part by the capacity of 
the teachers and by its equipment. 8. English and American 
history should be substituted for general history. 9. Summary 
of the course of study. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Education, from the standpoint of the mind which is 
being educated, consists of a vast series of changes ; from 
the standpoint of the teacher, of the influences brought to 
bear upon the mind to bring those changes about. But tlie 
intelHgent use of means to this end presupposes not only 
an idea of the type of character for the sake of which the 
changes are desired, but also of the mind in which it is to 
be developed. For our opinion as to what the mind may 
become depends upon our opinion of its essential nature. 
If we believe that the thoughts, feelings, and vohtions of 
a human being are the mechanical and inevitable results of 
the influences brought to bear upon him, we are bound 
to think of him as one of the links in the vast enginery of 
nature, and education cannot consider him as having any- 
thing to do with his own development. If, on the other hand, 
we believe that the mind is essentially active, then educa- 
tion has an entirely different problem to solve, the problem 
of supplying the mind with occasions of its own activity. 

The lines of our subject are, therefore, marked out for 
us by its character. We must first seek to determine the 
essential nature of the mind, whether it is active or pas- 
sive, and then endeavor to ascertain the end of education. 
This accomplished, we must investigate the means by which 
the ideal of education may be approximately realized. 

But it is already evident that the question of means 
must be considered from two points of view. For the 

13 



H 



INTRODUCTION. 



changes that take place in the mind at any moment are 
due not only to the particular influences brought to bear 
upon it, but to the nature of the mind, and that not simply 
as active or passive, but as endowed with certain impulses 
and native tendencies. In order to furnish an adequate 
explanation of a given state of anger, for example, we have 
to determine both what it was that occasioned the anger 
and what it is in human beings that makes such a state 
possible. In considering the means of education, there- 
fore, we are obliged to study the impulses of human nature 
which make education possible, as well as the material 
which must be presented to the mind in order to occasion 
the changes that lead towards the desired end. 

But the question of means must be further subdivided. 
For the effect of the material presented to the mind de- 
pends very much on the way in which it is presented, or, 
rather, the mode of the presentation forms an important 
part of the material. Compare George Eliot's sentence, 
" It seems to me there must always be pale sad faces 
among the flowers, and eyes that look in vain," with a 
prosaic expression of the same idea : It seems to me I shall 
never be able to see anything beautiful again without 
thinking of something sad, — and the effect of the form 
in which an idea is expressed becomes very evident. A 
rational theory of education, therefore, requires us not only 
to know what our pupils should study, but the manner in 
which the subjects should be taught : and this necessitates 
a discussion of method. 

A yet further subdivision is necessary. The changes in 
the mind in which education consists are exceedingly com- 
plex and numerous, the matter to be presented to it indefi- 
nitely extensive and various. The rational practice of 



INTRODUCTION. 



15 



education, therefore, requires us not only to know in a 
general way the changes which we wish to bring about in 
the minds of our pupils, and the subjects which they must 
study, but the method according to which they must be 
taught. Or, rather, in order to have a thorough grasp of 
method, we need to know the precise effect which a given 
phase of a subject ought to produce. The teacher's subjects 
are his tools ; in order to use them effectively, he needs to 
know the sort of influence which each of them ought to 
have in the shaping of the mind — he ought to know their 
educational values. 

When we have considered the influences exerted upon 
the pupil by the subjects which he studies, and the teacher's 
presentation of them, there remains for examination an 
important part of the business of the school. Those influ- 
ences to which the pupil is subjected which are designated 
by the term discipline have a direct bearing not only on 
the immediate work of the pupil, but upon those habits of 
conduct which a wise theory of education seeks to form. 
The subject of school management will, accordingly, form 
still another subdivision of the question of the means to be 
employed in the education of the pupil. 

We may, then, roughly indicate the subdivisions of our 
subject as follows : 

I, The nature of the mind — active or passive, person or thing. 
II. The end of education, 
III. The means to be employed in reaching it. 

1. Subjective: the impulses and native tendencies which make 

education possible — the "child's capital." 

2. Objective. 

a. The course of study. 

b. The method of teaching. 

c. Educational values. 

d. School management. 



1 6 INTRODUCTION. 

The first two general subdivisions grow out of the very 
nature of the subject. No matter what phase of education 
is considered, whether Kindergarten, elementary, secondary, 
or advanced, a rational treatment of it must be based on a 
conception of the nature of the individual whom we wish 
to educate, and of the ideal towards which we wish to 
develop him. But the means which education should em- 
ploy depend largely upon the stage which the mind has 
reached in its development. A course of study proper in a 
high school would not be proper in the primary grades ; a 
successful method of governing college students would not 
be recommended to a grammar-school teacher. It must 
be borne in mind, then, that in this book we are con- 
cerned only with elementary education. 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION: PERSON OR 
PHYSIOLOGICAL MACHINE. 

There is a preliminary question which must be an- 
swered before there can be any intelligent discussion of 
the purpose or methods of education : What is the nature 
of the mind ? Is consciousness an active process deter- 
mined by the mind's own laws, or is it only a mechanical 
reflection of objects ? 

Theory of Automatism Stated — Automatism gives a 
precise answer to this question. It says that the mind is 
a mere thing among the other things of the world. It 
holds that at a certain stage in the evolution of the cosmos 
organic life began to appear ; that later a nervous system 
began to exist ; that at some point in the development of 
the nervous system a rudimentary form of consciousness 
began to evolve ; and that from this simple beginning 
up to and including man there has been no essential 
change in the nature of mental life. Throughout the 
entire series, from the lowest and most incoherent form 
of organic matter to the most highly developed human 

17 



1 8 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION, 

being, you find, according to automatism, one kind of cause 
and one only — matter. The matter that functions in the 
inorganic world does indeed differ from that of which a 
highly developed nervous system is composed. But it 
differs only in the degree of its complexity. And as the 
motions that take place in the simplest forms of matter 
are due to material causes only, so are those that take 
place in the human body — what we call consciousness, 
having; no more to do with them than the whiz of a wheel 
with its revolution. 

Nothing is Due to Purpose, if Automatism be True. — 

If this theory be true, we must change our attitude towards 
human beings. It can no longer be said that men buy, 
sell, steal, kill for gold or for anything ; purpose has no 
existence among the reahties of the world. Its place is 
taken by the brain, blindly and mechanically obeying the 
laws of matter. Man indeed has no independent exist- 
ence, unless we give that name to the purely material 
aggregate known as the human body. The body, consti- 
tuting the innermost nature of man and forming a part of 
the material universe, is strictly and absolutely governed 
by material laws. We get up in the morning, dress, eat 
our breakfast, go to our place of business, write letters, 
engage in conversation, not because we are intelligent 
beings, but because our brains are what they are — every 
movement of every part of our bodies being the purely 
passive product of mechanical forces. 

From the Standpoint of this Theory Education has to 
do with the Brain Only, not with the Mind. — From the 
standpoint of this theory education begins and ends with 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. I9 

modifications of the brain. If we are automatists, we may 
— if our brains permit us — continue to talk about arous- 
ing the aspirations of our pupils, stimulating their inter- 
ests, making appeals to their wills, to their sense of duty 
or of honor. But if we are bold enough to accept the 
logical consequences of our theory, we shall be sure that 
such appeals either accomplish nothing or that they do not 
operate as they seem to do. We shall be sure that they 
derive their entire significance from the fact that in some 
inscrutable way they produce a peculiar effect upon the 
body — not through the agency of the mind. The sentinel 
on guard, fighting against the drowsiness that threatens to 
overcome him, utters the word " duty " and straightway 
every sense becomes alert, every muscle tense, through 
attention. If automatism be true, how are we to explain 
this fact ? Are we to say that it was the desire of the 
sentinel -not to betray his trust that enabled him to over- 
come his drowsiness ? That would impute efficiency to 
consciousness, that a state of his mind caused something, 
while the theory maintains that what he does is due to his 
brain alone. 

Ordinary Facts Incapable of Clear Statement from the 
Standpoint of Automatism. — From the point of view of 
automatism the fact is not only inexplicable, but the very 
attempt to state it involves one in a labyrinth of obscuri- 
ties. "The sentinel on guard " is a phrase which embodies 
contradictory ideas. '* The sentinel " is nothing but a 
group of atoms every change in which takes place accord- 
ing to material laws. But "on guard " expresses purpose, 
and matter has no purposes to serve. Blind matter obey- 
ing mechanical laws is the only causal agency in the 



20 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

universe. " The sentinel on guard," then, means for 
automatism nothing more than that the aggregate of ma- 
terial atoms which constitute the sentinel has, in obedience 
to certain mechanical laws, undergone such changes as to 
result in the body's taking a position in a certain place and 
in an erect form. That the body holds a gun in its hands, 
that the gun will be used against all enemies, are inexplica- 
ble facts, according to automatism. To say that they are 
due to purpose would be to ignore all the achievements of 
science from Empedocles to Herbert Spencer, and naively 
to suppose with the old Greek philosopher that the reason 
why a leaf falls to the ground is because of its desire to 
rest on the bosom of the earth. 

The phrase "fighting the drowsiness" is just as contra- 
dictory from the standpoint of automatism. To the senti- 
nel who foolishly supposes that he is something more than 
a group of material atoms the phrase has a meaning. To 
him it signifies a struggle between himself and purely ma- 
terial conditions. " Drowsiness " he regards as the effect 
of his bodily state, and "fighting" as the effort which he, 
the conscious being, makes to overcome it. But, accord- 
ing to automatism, "fighting" and "drowsiness" repre- 
sent nothing but material changes taking place in material 
things. We are again confronted with the same dilemma : 
the necessity of imputing purpose to that which, according 
to the theory, cannot entertain it, or of admitting that the 
facts, or what seem to be the facts, of ordinary life are 
incapable of being stated in terms of the theory. 

Obviously every statement in the sentence is condemned 
to the same fate. " Every muscle becomes tense through 
attention " has a meaning only on the supposition that the 
mind has an influence on the body. Accepting automa- 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 21 

tism, we must describe the fact set forth in the sentence 
as follows : In the functioning of that purely physical 
machine which constitutes the sentinel an exceedingly 
complex group of changes in that part of the machine 
called the brain has led to equally complex changes in the 
nerves controlling the action of the muscles of the various 
parts of the machine, with the result that it takes an erect 
position in a certain place. This machine is subject to 
two highly complex groups of internal influences : a part 
of the atoms of its brain is undergoing changes which tend 
to produce such an effect on certain nerves and, through 
them, on certain muscles as will make an erect position of 
the machine impossible ; another part of the atoms of the 
brain is undergoing such changes as tend to counteract the 
changes of the first. The two sets of forces are almost 
perfectly balanced until somehow those brain changes 
stimulate the nerves controlling the tongue in such a way 
as to cause it to utter the word "duty," and straightway 
the nerve changes which stimulate the muscles that keep 
the body in an erect position become intensified and those 
having an opposing tendency become weakened. But this 
"description," it is evident, takes no account of the only 
characteristic features of the fact. That which sets it off 
from a mere happening in the external world, like the fall 
of a leaf from a tree, is the purpose which stupid common 
sense imputes to the sentinel ; but automatism leaves no 
place for purpose. 

We say the soldier did his duty ; we might with equal 
reason give the same praise to a tree which falls to the 
ground just in time to crush the skull of a notorious crimi- 
nal. As the tree falls because it has to, so the tongue of 
the soldier wagged because it had to : each obeyed purely 



22 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

physical laws and produced in turn a purely physical 
result. 

According to Automatism, Physical Causes Alone Account 

for All We Do Of course, if automatism be true, teacher 

as well as pupil, writer as well as reader, are hopelessly en- 
tangled in purely physical causation. My pen writes these 
lines because my hand is compelled by the changes that 
take place in my brain to trace them, and every word that 
the teacher utters is due to the same cause. If the phys- 
ical laws that govern my brain changes will permit me to 
think logically, I shall be sure, if I am an automatist, that 
this book, for example, will produce an effect upon its 
readers, not through their intelligence, but through their 
nervous systems. And the teachers who are automatists 
will be equally sure that the feelings which their words 
bring to the minds of their pupils are significant only in so 
far as they indicate changes that are taking place in their 
brains. 

Automatism Leaves No Place for Logical Thinking. — 

But, upon second thought, both these statements are with- 
out warrant. " Logical " itself is a term without signifi- 
cance from the point of view of automatism. There are 
states of mind called belief, and these, like all other states, 
are the necessary and passive accompaniments of brain 
changes. To attempt to draw distinctions between them, 
to say that some are logical, would be to forget that the 
various states of mind have only one quality in common 
— that of being the inevitable result of brain changes. No 
state of mind as such signifies anything. The wakefulness 
of the sentinel as a state of mind counts for nothing ; it ^s 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 23 

the physical condition of which this mental state is the sign 
that counts. And if the laws which control the changes 
in our brains will permit us to think of things as they are, 
always provided automatism be accepted as true, we shall 
continue to endeavor to arouse the ambitions of our pupils, 
to excite their interests, to make appeals to their sense of 
honor, only because the same laws have in some inscruta- 
ble way brought about brain changes which compel us to 
have a profound confidence in the physical effect of illu- 
sions ; or, rather, we shall continue to do it because the 
influences which act upon the physical machine which we 
ourselves are, make that and nothing else possible. If the 
only things in the world are physical, if all causation is 
physical, our faith in the efficiency of any appeal, if it has 
any foundation, must be grounded on our confidence in 
the purely material effect of such appeals. 

Indeed according to the theory all teaching, all writ- 
ing, all conversation, all so-called science is absurd. All 
intercourse of mind with mind presupposes that the mind 
is susceptible of being influenced by intelligent considera- 
tions, whereas it is influenced by nothing but matter. A 
man who expostulates with a cyclone, entreating it either 
to suppress itself or, if it will not do that, to select a field 
of operations where it will do less damage, is quite as logi- 
cal as a teacher who, believing that actions are not influ- 
enced by intelligence, expostulates with an unruly boy, 
urging him to change his course because of the influence 
he is exerting upon the school. Cyclone and boy alike 
are inevitably bound to obey the mechanical laws of mat- 
ter. That the two differ in an important particular, that 
the boy can be made aware of the tendencies of his con- 
duct, in no way establishes an essential difference between 



24 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

them, since, according to automatism, his consciousness 
has nothing to do with his actions. 

Automatism Makes Distinctions Between Truth and 
Falsehood Impossible. — It follows, of course, from what 
has been said, that this statement is, from the standpoint 
of the theory, absurd. This statement, like every other, 
assumes that there is such a thing as truth, assumes, in 
other words, that in an act of real knowledge the act of 
cognition is something radically different from a mere 
passive effect ; that the mind, in knowing, stands in a 
unique relation with its object, a relation that has no 
counterpart in the material world. Whoever says, " I see 
it," " I believe it," " It is true," makes assertions into 
which no meaning can be put by automatism. All the 
language of ordinary life, to say nothing of the carefully 
guarded statements of science, presupposes that acts of 
the mind may come into a peculiar relation with objects — 
a relation which is through and through mental, a relation 
which, however hard it may be to define it, we all have in 
mind — when we assert that a thing is true. Automatism, 
on the other hand, maintains that the one thing which can 
be asserted of states of consciousness is that they are the 
passive results of brain changes ; and this is equivalent to 
saying that the cause-and-effect relation is the only one 
into which they can enter. 

Theory of Parallelism Stated. — There is another theory 
of the relation between the mind and the body which makes 
equally impossible the presuppositions which must be 
made by any consistent educational doctrine. This theory, 
known as parallelism, maintains that matter and mind never 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 25 

exist apart ; that not only in the human brain, but every- 
where, from an atom to the largest star, matter and mind 
go together. Instead of supposing with avitomatism that 
at a certain point in the development of the nervous system 
a rudimentary form of consciousness began to exist, parallel- 
ism maintains that a germ, so to speak, of consciousness 
exists not only in connection with the most elementary 
nervous systenis, not only in connection with every form 
of organic life, not only in connection with every complex 
form of inorganic matter, but in connection with the 
simple elements out of which those complex forms are 
built up. 

Superiority of Parallelism over Automatism The ad- 
vantage of parallelism over automatism as a metaphysical 
theory is manifest. Automatism offers no explanation for 
the appearance of an entirely new phenomenon, conscious- 
ness, at a certain point in the history of the evolving world. 
Parallelism avoids this difficulty by postulating a universal 
and necessary connection between matter and conscious- 
ness — by postulating that wherever matter is, and in what- 
ever form, there consciousness is. 

This Superiority has no Significance from the Standpoint 
of Education. — But this superiority has no significance from 
the point of view of education. Granted that mind and 
matter are inseparable, and that for that reason a human 
being has a mental and a material side ; granted that those 
sides are so related that the question as to which of them 
is the cause of the other in a given case becomes absurd, 
since it is the nature of each to be the opposite of the 
other. The question of fundamental importance for educa- 



26 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

tion is, which of these two sides has priority ? Does 
the mental side obey laws of its own, the material accom- 
paniment passively following where consciousness leads ? 
Or does the physical side take the lead, the mental accom- 
paniment mechanically following ? Parallelism does not, 
cannot hesitate between these alternatives. The logic of 
the situation compels it to say that matter and mind are 
like substance and shadow, the former containing all the 
causal energy of the universe, the latter being only its inert 
accompaniment. 

According to Parallelism the Relation Between Matter and 
Consciousness is like that Between Substance and Shadow. — 

What is the object of both automatism and parallelism ? 
To introduce simplicity into our conceptions of the uni- 
verse, to close every breach in the continuity of cosmic 
processes. Parallelism differs from automatism in that 
while the latter accomplishes this purpose from one point 
of view, it fails to do it from another. Automatism does 
indeed present to our conception a universe whose every 
element is under the absolute control of physical laws. 
But facts which compel recognition force it to admit that 
in connection with the developing nervous system a new 
phenomenon appears, a phenomenon which plays no part, 
serves no function, has no purpose, and, what is worse, has 
no assignable origin. For the distance from matter to 
mind is just as great as that from mind to matter. And 
he who has difficulty in conceiving how mind can influence 
matter ought to have equal difficulty in seeing how matter 
can give birth to mind. Now parallelism avoids both diffi- 
culties. It postulates a connection between matter and 
mind as a part of the nature of things, thus avoiding the 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 2/ 

necessity of accounting for consciousness as a new fact in 
connection with animal life, and at the same time solves 
the problem of the origin of consciousness by assuming that 
there is no problem to solve. 

It is evident, therefore, that both parallelism and autom- 
atism must take the same attitude towards the laws of 
nature. The laws of gravitation, cohesion, chemical affin- 
ity, and the like, are purely mechanical laws. To permit 
mind or consciousness anywhere to take the initiative, to 
compel matter to be passive and wait upon mind, would be 
to make precisely the break in the continuity of cosmic 
processes which both theories aim to avoid. It would be 
to assert that under certain circumstances all the changes 
in matter are due to mechanical laws, and that, under cer- 
tain other conditions, those laws cease to be the only 
laws in operation, and that matter comes, to some extent 
at least,- under the control of the laws of logic and of 
mind. 

Nor is this difficulty avoided by Professor Baldwin, who 
says that it is not the brain as mere matter, but the brain 
plus the consciousness that forms its inseparable accom- 
paniment, and without which "the brain would not be a 
brain," which causes voluntary movement. For he admits 
that the principle of parallelism would be violated if con- 
sciousness had any efficiency whatever in producing phys- 
ical effects. 

Evidently, therefore, from the standpoint of a consis- 
tent theory of education automatism and parallelism are 
on a level. Arguments, discussions, conversation, have 
the same absurdity from the point of view of one theory 
as from that of the other. Both assume that conscious- 
ness is the internal passive accompaniment of physical 



28 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

changes, whereas all argument presupposes that it can be 
broyght under influences of a purely intelligent character. 

Attempts to Do Away with the Distinction Between Laws 
of Matter and Laws of Mind. — Nor is the case made 
better for education by the attempt through a supposedly 
deeper metaphysic to annihilate the distinction between 
the laws of matter and the laws of mind. By maintaining 
that the laws of matter are themselves simply the expres- 
sion of the will of an infinite consciousness, that they are 
in the last analysis laws of mind, some thinkers seem to 
imagine that the difficulties upon which we have been in- 
sisting are obviated. But it is surely unnecessary to insist 
that, no matter what the metaphysical character of the 
laws of nature may be, they wear, to the look of our ap- 
prehension, the same mechanical character which they 
have when we regard them as laws of matter. Whether 
the law of gravitation is a law of matter or of mind, a tree 
that falls to the ground in obedience to it will make no 
discrimination between a good man and a bad man who 
happen to stand in its path. If the universe and its laws 
are but the embodiment and externalization of the nature 
of an infinite consciousness, educational doctrine has no 
foundation if it is maintained that, since the human mind 
is a part of this externalization, it has no autonomy, obeys 
no laws of its own. Education as consisting of influences 
exerted by one intelligence upon another cannot be con- 
ceived if the educating intelligence is powerless and if the 
intelligence to be educated cannot be got at. Make what 
supposition you please about the entity with which our 
minds are associated — call it Matter, with plain people ; or 
the Unknowable, with Herbert Spencer ; or the Merely 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 29 

Possible, with the Positivists ; or Absokite Consciousness, 
with some metaphysicians — and you have done nothing 
to make educational theory possible so long as you con- 
tend that consciousness, to be educated, must obey laws 
imposed upon it by an outside power. If mind cannot 
come into contact with mind ; if it has no ear for logic, no 
eye for intelligence ; if it is but the tail of a metaphysical 
kite with no agency or volition of its own, then education, 
and for that matter science, is impossible. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is the theory of automatism? 

2. Show that if this theory is true, nothing which we do can be 
due to purpose. 

3. Why, if it is true, has education to do with the body only? 

4. Why does automatism render it impossible to make a clear 
statement of ordinary facts ? 

5. Why, according to automatism, must physical causes account 
for all we do ? 

6. Why does it leave no place for logical thinking? 

7. Why does it make distinctions between truth and falsehood 
impossible ? 

8. What is the difference between automatism and parallelism? 

9. Show that, according to parallelism, the relation between matter 
and mind is like that between a thing and its shadow. 

10. Why must any attempt to identify the laws of matter and of 
mind have the same consequences for education as automatism or 
parallelism ? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Can you think of any reasons which might incline men to 
believe that automatism is true? 

2. Can you cite any cases in which men act precisely as they 
would if they were mere automata ? 

3. What makes you believe that you have a mind ? 

4. Why do you believe that other people have minds? 



30 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



5. Would your reasons be valid if automatism were true ? 

6. What is the relation between automatism and materialism ? 

7. Can you think of any reasons which might incline men to 
believe that every kind of matter has a bit of mind stuff connected 
with it ? 

8. What is the difference between mechanical and intelligent 
action ? 

9. What is the difference between the law of gravitation and the 
force of gravity ? 

10. Do you know what the force of gravity is? 



CHAPTER II. 

A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION: PERSON OR 
PSYCHOLOGICAL MACHINE. 

Herbart's Theory of the Will. — There is another class 
of theories, of which Herbart's is a type, which equally 
eliminate the will from the causes that determine the ac- 
tions of a human being. As automatism makes the actions 
of men depend upon a purely physical mechanism, so Her- 
bartianism makes them depend upon a purely psychical 
mechanism. According to Herbart, the soul is merely one 
among the other monads of the world. The only thing 
which the soul monad can do is to resist the efforts of the 
other monads to destroy it — which resistance expresses 
itself in the form of consciousness. Feelings are the result 
of the relations between states of consciousness, and will 
is only the name which we give to a peculiar feeling when 
it passes into action. We have, according to Herbart, two 
classes of desires, one accompanied, and the other not, by 
a belief in the expediency of a certain action. The former 
passes into action, the latter does not ; and the so-called 
consciousness of a volition is nothing but the consciousness 
of the passing of a desire into action. 

Metaphysical Difficulties of the Theory If we were 

discussing the theory from the side of metaphysics, it 
would be insisted on that this theory is inconsistent with 
itself. Starting with the postulate that the soul can only 

31 



32 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

do one thing — resist the attacks of other monads upon it 
— the theory really postulates two kinds of soul activity. 
For Herbart concedes that feeling as well as knowing is a 
genuine form of mental activity. And the Herbartians 
cannot deny that feeling as well as knowing is a product 
of the soul without denying that it is the soul that feels. 

We should also point out that the theory is untrue to 
the facts of consciousness. According to the theory, the 
mind is purely passive in its so-called acts of volition ; 
according to consciousness, volition is the active product of 
an active mind. The mind seems to itself in its acts of 
volition to be exercising a power of its own, sometimes in 
strenuous and painful opposition to desires that threaten 
to break it down. 

Educational Implications of the Theory. — But our con- 
cern is with the educational implications of the theory, and 
our contention is that there must be a radical difference 
between a philosophy of education which bows the will 
out of the universe whether in the interest of a physiologi- 
cal or a psychological mechanism, and one which is based 
upon the belief that the deepest things in the life of a 
human being rest upon his will. 

The theory that a human being is a psychological or 
metaphysical machine is not indeed exposed to the same 
difficulties as those that automatism and parallelism have 
to contend with. As has been shown, they make a philoso- 
phy of education impossible, because they leave no place 
for the effectiveness of appeals to intelligence. If all cau- 
sation is blindly mechanical, then education, since its object 
is to increase the effectiveness of intelligence, is pure illu- 
sion. As well appeal to the shadows that dance on a wall 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. ^3 

as to an intelligence that is a passive, nerveless, forceless 
spectator of the world. 

It Does not Make a Philosophy of Education Impos- 
sible. — But if the soul is a metaphysical machine, there 
is no a priori reason why it may not obey laws of its own. 
As matter must obey mechanical laws, so, it may be held, 
the mind is obliged by its nature to obey mental laws. 
Now such a theory does not make a philosophy of educa- 
tion impossible. If mind, like matter, acts as it does 
because it must, and, at the same time, obeys laws of its 
own, education may be conceived as the process of sur- 
rounding the mind with influences, subjecting its actions 
to conditions which will occasion its actions more and 
more to conform to a preconceived end. 

Nevertheless such a theory must profoundly affect one's 
philosophy of education. Is there in the minds of your 
pupils a will upon whose cooperation or opposition you 
have to reckon .'' Are you to conceive of them as beings 
whose every action is inevitably determined by some form 
of interest } Or may you regard them as possessed of an 
innate power of resistance to the powerful currents that 
would sweep them from their moorings .■* Plainly one's 
philosophy of education must depend upon his answer to 
these questions. For if with Herbart we hold that the 
actions of men are determined entirely by their interests, 
then with him we must hold that the most important thing 
in education is the development of interest. But if we 
assent to the reality of the will, of a power that can throw 
its weight in the scale of the weaker interest and habitu- 
ally does so in the life of a well-regulated human being, 
we shall realize that the development of interest, important 



34 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

as it is from any point of view, must give precedence to 
the training of the will. Without a well-trained will at the 
helm, the life of every human being must drift aimlessly 
and helplessly, the sport of the capricious winds of impulse 
and passion that beat upon it. Surely, as Hinsdale said, 
if there is a will, a power of active volitional attention, its 
cultivation is the "educational problem." As Dr. Car- 
penter puts it,' " it is in virtue of the will that we are not 
mere thinking automata, mere puppets to be pulled by 
suggesting strings capable of being played upon by every 
one who shall have made himself master of our springs of 
action." Naturally, in the opinion of the same author, 
the acquirement of the "volitional direction of attention 
. . . should be the primary object of all mental discipline." 
As the Herbartians, who do not believe in the existence of 
the will, contend that the primary object of education is 
the cultivation of interest, since it is the sole spring of 
action, so those who agree with Dr. Carpenter must 
believe in the preeminent importance of that power which 
alone distinguishes a man from an automaton. 

Consequences of the Theory. — The difference between 
the mind as the writer conceives it and the mind as the 
Herbartians conceive it, is fundamental. To say, as the 
latter do, that there is no such thing as will, that volition 
is merely the passing of a desire into action, that the mind 
is controlled by its interests, is to say that the mind at 
each moment is controlled by the feelings then present to 
consciousness. Yesterday I had certain feelings and under 
their influence formed certain resolutions ; what signifi- 
cance can they have for me to-day when the feelings are 
1 Hinsdale's Art of Study, p. 141. 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 



35 



gone ? Absolutely none. Yesterday the wind blew from 
the west and my rudderless vessel went due east ; to-day 
it comes fresh and driving from the north and my course 
must be toward the south. There is nothing in me to 
enable me either to make headway against it or to offer 
any obstacle to it. I am the helpless victim of the wind 
and waves. If there were within me a principle of action 
not dependent for its exercise on feelings present to con- 
sciousness, this principle might by its control over the 
attention arouse some feeble interest of an antagonistic 
sort. And if the same principle of action were of such 
a sort as to make it possible for it to choose between 
interests present to it, then I might decide to act on the 
weaker and pursue my course steadily in spite of the 
tornadoes of passion that would turn me aside from it. 
But if there is in me no such principle, no such rudder of 
the mind; so to speak, it would seem that a steady, persis- 
tent adherence to a course in the face of all obstacles, not 
only from moment to moment, but from hour to hour and 
day to day and year to year, would be impossible. 

Coleridge. — The difference between the mind as we con- 
ceive it and the mind as the Herbartians conceive it may 
perhaps be more clearly brought out by a study of Cole- 
ridge. All who knew him well agree that the great de- 
fect of his mind was his weakness of will — weakness of 
the power whose function it is to make an effective stand 
against the unimportant interests of the moment which 
would turn the mind away from the course it has marked 
out for itself. " At the very outset of his career," says 
Dr. Carpenter, "when he had found a bookseller generous 
enough to promise him thirty guineas for poems which 



^6 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

he recited to him, and might have received the whole sum 
immediately upon delivery of the manuscript, he went on 
week after week begging and borrowing for his daily needs 
in the most humiliating manner, until he had drawn from 
his patron the whole of the promised purchase-money, 
without supplying him with a line of that poetry which he 
had only to write down to free himself from obligation. . . . 
All accounts of Coleridge's habits of thought as mani- 
fested in his conversation agree in showing that his train 
of mental operations once started went on of itself, some- 
times for a long distance in the original direction with a 
divergence into some other track, according to the consec- 
utive suggestions of his own mind, or to new suggestions 
introduced into it from without." How did it happen that 
the train of thought going on of itself sometimes travelled 
for a long distance in the same direction ? It was because 
of the continuance of the interests that dominated it at the 
start, not because he had marked out for himself a goal 
toward which he pressed forward in spite of interests that 
tended to draw him away from it. 

This explanation is irresistibly suggested by another 
incident which Dr. Carpenter mentions. A lady narrated 
to him the experience which she and her schoolgirl friends 
at Highgate used to have at the time of Coleridge's resi- 
dence there. When the latter succeeded in getting one of 
the children to talk with him, the conversation would soon 
" pass into the accustomed monologue, altogether beyond 
the comprehension of the poor child," who vainly endeav- 
ored to free herself that she might resume her sport. 
Manifestly the cause of the conversation was not deter- 
mined by some preconceived end, but by the predomi- 
nance of metaphysical interests with which his mind 



A PRESUPrOSlTION OV EDUCATION. 



37 



was full and on account of which the child was entirely- 
forgotten. 

Coleridge's conversation, as Carlyle describes it, admits 
of no other explanation. " He began anywhere ; you put 
some question to him, made some suggestive observation ; 
instead of answering this, or decidedly setting out towards 
answer of it, he would accumulate formidable apparatus, 
logical swim-bladders, transcendental life-preservers and 
other precautionary and vehiculatory gear for setting out ; 
perhaps did at last get under way, but was swiftly solicited, 
turned aside by the glance of some radiant new game on 
this hand or that, into new courses. . . . His talk, alas ! 
was distinguished, like himself, by irresolution ; it disliked 
to be troubled with conditions, abstinences, definite fulfil- 
ments ; loved to wander at its own sweet will. It was 
talk not flowing anywhither like a river, but abounding 
everywhere in inextricable currents and regurgitations like 
a sea or lake ; terribly deficient in definite goal or aim, 
nay, often in logical intelligibility ; what you were to be- 
lieve or do on any earthly or heavenly thing obstinately 
refusing to appear from it." 

His notorious lack of punctuality may be ascribed to the 
same cause. Says De Ouincey : " Nobody who knew him 
ever thought of depending upon any appointment he might 
make ; spite of his uniformly honorable intentions, nobody 
attached any weight to his assurance inficturo; those who 
asked him to dinner or any other party, as a matter of 
course sent a carriage for him, and went personally or by 
proxy to fetch him." 

The accounts given of Coleridge's lectures are just what 
we would expect upon the supposition that one of his most 
notable traits of mind was lack of will. Says Henry 



38 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

Crabb Robinson : " Accompanied Mrs. Ruth to Cole- 
ridge's lecture. In this he surpassed himself in the art of 
talking in a very interesting way, without speaking at all 
on the subject announced. According to advertisement, 
he was to lecture on 'Romeo and Juliet' and Shakespeare's 
female characters. Instead of this he began with school- 
flogging, in preference at least to Lancaster's mode of 
punishing, without pretending to find the least connection 
between that topic and poetry. Afterwards he remarked 
on the character of the age of Elizabeth and James I. as 
compared with that of Charles ; distinguished, not very 
clearly, between wit and fancy ; referred to the different 
languages of Europe ; attacked the fashionable notion 
concerning poetic diction ; ridiculed the tautology of John- 
son's line, ' If observation with extended view,' etc. ; and 
warmly defended Shakespeare against the charge of impu- 
rity." Lamb's comment was certainly to the point : "He 
promised a lecture on the Muse in ' Romeo and Juliet,' and 
in its place he has given us one in the manner of the 
Muse." In the next lecture Coleridge managed to stick 
to his subject, but, as we learn from the same authority, 
he failed completely the third time. " Tuesday we were 
to hear a continuation of the theme. Alas ! Coleridsre 
began with a parallel between religion and love, which, 
though one of his favorite themes, he did not manage 
successfully. Romeo and Juliet were forgotten. And 
in the next lecture we are really to hear something of 
these lovers. . . . Instead of a lecture on a definite 
subject, we have an unmethodical rhapsody, very delightful 
to you and me and only offensive from the certainty that 
it may and ought to offend those who came with other 
expectations." It would be hard to find a more vivid illus- 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 



39 



tration of the truth of Dr. Hinsdale's emphatic state- 
ment : " A man who can only do what interests him is not 
half a man." 

The importance of this question would seem to justify a 
somewhat detailed examination of Dr. Dewey's elaborate 
presentation of a philosophy of education which makes the 
development of interest the supreme object of all training. 

Dr. Dewey's Theory of Interest. — Let it first be re- 
marked that Dr. Dewey's statement of the case in the 
" educational lawsuit of interest versus effort cannot be 
accepted." ^ If we can secure interest in a given set of 
facts or ideas, we may be perfectly sure that the pupil will 
direct his energies towards mastering them." That is not 
true, for two reasons : when we have developed interest in 
a given subject, we have no guarantee that it will be per- 
manent.. Interest is a state of mind ; when the state of 
mind passes away interest ceases to be. And because we 
felt it to-day we are not able to say that we shall experi- 
ence it to-morrow. Moreover, we have no sort of reason 
for declaring that it will not come into competition with a 
stronger interest. If there is no such thing as a power of 
will, it is a question of the relative strength of interests : 
the stronger interest must drive the weaker to the wall. 

Nor does "the theory of effort say that voluntary 
attention should take precedence over spontaneous atten- 
tion " in any other sense than this : the pupil must have 
some interest in every subject to which it is his duty to 
attend, and the theory of effort maintains that he should 
be required to attend to that whether his interest in it is 
his strongest interest or not. Nor does the "theory of 

1 The quotations are from Dr. Dewey's pamphlet on Interest. 



40 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

effort " say that " demands are constantly made," that 
" situations have to be dealt with which present no features 
of interest.'*' It only says that demands are continually 
being made which present features of less interest than 
are offered by other lines of possible activity. 

Self-Expression as Understood by Dr. Dewey Dr. 

Dewey finds a common false assumption in the theory of 
effort and the theory of interest as ordinarily conceived : 
the assumption of "the externality of the object or idea 
to be mastered, the end to be reached, the act to be per- 
formed, to the self." "The genuine principle of interest," 
he maintains, " is the principle of recognized identity of 
the fact or proposed line of action with the self; that it 
lies in the direction of the agent's own self-expression, and 
is therefore imperatively demanded if the agent is to be 
himself." 

Unless Dr. Dewey means by his "genuine principle of 
interest " to draw a distinction between interests which 
from the point of view of psychology stand on a level, his 
principle is not only true but tautological. A boy likes to 
fight because he is combative ; he does what he sees 
another boy do because he is imitative ; he is never still a 
moment because he is active ; he likes to talk because he 
is social. So conceived, it is self-evident that whatever a 
boy wishes to do lies in the direction of his self-expression ; 
he likes to do what he does because his nature is what it 
is. But, so conceived, it is equally evident that the self 
which he wishes to express may be precisely the one which 
we who are interested in his development do not want him 
to express. Professor James says that he would if he 
could be both "handsome and fat and well-dressed and 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 



41 



a great athlete. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, 
deepest self must review the list completely and find out 
the one on which to stake his salvation." We are not 
assisted, therefore, by being told what our pupils wish to 
do in the line of their self-expression ; what we need to 
know is what self is being expressed, and what means are 
to be employed to prevail upon them to express the self 
which we regard as their true self. 

This evident distinction Dr. Dewey has taken no ac- 
count of. "Genuine interest in education," he says, "is 
the accompaniment of the identification through action of 
the self with some object or idea for the maintenance of 
self-expression." But, as has just been seen, this interest 
may accompany the identification of the pupil through 
action with widely different selves. 

Dr. Dewey's Confused Account of Interest. — The 

same confusion reappears in his definitions of interest. 
" The root idea of the term seems to be that of being 
engaged, engrossed, or entirely taken up with some 
activity because of its recognized zvorth.'' If the italicized 
phrase merely means that the individual is engrossed 
with a thing because it appeals to him, if every idea of 
moral, aesthetic, or intellectual worth is rigidly excluded 
from it, no exception can be taken to it. The gambler is 
intensely interested in his game, and never more so than 
when he is trying to cheat his victim out of all he is worth. 
But the context makes it impossible to put this interpre- 
tation on Dr. Dewey's definition. In the very next par- 
agraph he says that " much of the controversy regarding 
the use of interest arises because one party is using 
the term in the larger objective sense of recognized 



42 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

value in engrossing activity, while the other is using 
it as equivalent to selfish motives." But those who use 
the term to denote the emotional accompaniment of en- 
grossing activity include both selfish motives and recog- 
nized value. Devil and saint are equally interested in 
their respective activities. The burglar planning to rob 
a bank, the mother pondering the education of her child, 
are equally engrossed with the subject of their thoughts. 
That you disapprove the one and approve the other does 
not prevent both from being states of interest. To call a 
mode of being engrossed interest when you approve of it, 
and to refuse to give it that name when you disapprove 
of it, is to forsake the point of view of p.sychology for that 
of ethics. But there can be no valid description of inter- 
est except as a state of mind. 

Having confused self in general with the self which 
education seeks to develop, and interest in general with 
interests that have an educational value, Dr. Dewey has 
but one more step to take in order to reach his goal. If 
he can show that interest in an end necessitates an abid- 
ing and equal interest in the means, he has simplified the 
educational problem. Education has only to develop an 
interest in the proper end and its most important task 
is done. 

Dr. Dewey's Attempt to Show that Interest in an End 
Guarantees an Abiding Interest in the Means. — Dr. Dewey 
proves the point by begging the question. "If," he says, 
"the means are recognized truly as means, . . . then the 
full interest in the end is at once transferred to the so- 
called means." Again, " the only sure evidence of desire as 
against mere vague wishing is effort, and desire is aroused 



A PRESUPPOSITION OF EDUCATION. 



43 



only when the exercise of effort is required." Evidence of 
desire to whom .'* To me who experience it or to an outsider ? 
Certainly, I who experience it require no evidence beyond 
the consciousness of the desire, and if the report of my 
consciousness is to be accepted, it is one thing to be in- 
terested in an end and quite another to have an abiding 
and equal interest in the means that lead to it. To say 
that whenever the ideal is really a projection or transla- 
tion of the self it must strive to assert itself, that it must 
persist through obstacles, is to contradict the plainest and 
commonest facts of experience. Three fourths of the 
tragedy of life arises from the fact that men fail ignomini- 
ously to live up to their ideals, and one reason why they 
fail is because of the uninteresting, unattractive character 
of the means they must employ to reach them. 

That a thinker of Dr. Dewey's ability should be reduced 
to such straits in order to use interest as the foundation 
of his philosophy of education, that he should confuse self 
in general with one's best self, and interest in general with 
interests that have an educational value, that he should 
misstate facts of universal experience by contending that 
whoever is interested in a given end is equally interested 
in the necessary means, is surely a cogent argument 
against his position. We submit, then, that the ideal 
which education should put before itself is that of a human 
being not controlled by, but controlling, his interests • — a 
human being choosing, under the guidance of an intelligent 
will, what interests shall determine his activity. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. Vhat is Herbart's theory of the will? 

2. What are the metaphysical difficulties of the theory? 



44 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

3. What is its bearing on education? 

4. What is the study of Coleridge intended to show? 

5. State Dr. Dewey's theory of interest. 

6. What does he mean by " self-e.xpression " ? 

7. State clearly the three fallacies of which he is the sponsor and 
show clearly that they are fallacies. 

SUCxGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Do you think there is any difference between will and desire, 
and, if so, why ? 

2. What is the difference between a physiological and a psycho- 
logical machine? 

3. What sort of laws would govern the movements of the former, 
and what the movements of the latter? 

4. The Herbartians maintain that it makes no difference whether 
we believe that our pupils have wills or not : do you agree with them, 
and, if not, why not? 

5. Show that a boy may develop into any one of an indefinite 
number of selves. 

6. Show that all of the impulses of a human being are equally a 
part of his actual self. 

7. Show that some of these impulses are antagonistic to education. 

8. Show by illustrations drawn from your own experience that it 
is possible to have interests which possess no educational value. 

9. Would you say that burglars, thieves, pickpockets, murderers, 
have no interests? 

10. Illustrate from your own experience the fact that you may really 
care for an end, and yet find the means which are necessary to attain 
it so unmteresting that you cannot bring yourself to employ them. 



CHAPTER III. 

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. 

The Connection Between Education and the Form of Gov- 
ernment. — Education deals with members of society, not 
with isolated human beings. And the duties of men mani- 
festly differ with the forms of the society to which they 
belong. The duties of American citizens, for example, 
differ in important particulars from those of the citizens 
of Germany. It would, of course, be absurd to say that 
the society of any highly civilized country under a mon- 
archical form of government has anything in common with 
the caste system. But the society of Germany, or even of 
England, has far less of nobility than is characteristic of 
the society of this country. The theory that underlies the 
governments of England and Germany is that birth, as 
such, is entitled to special powers and privileges. The 
theory that underlies our own government is that every 
man has the right to make the most of himself and his 
life, without being hampered by artificial distinctions. 
Now, a government based on the aristocratic theory is 
logically bound to make different provisions for the educa- 
tion of different classes, provided it makes any provision 
whatever for the education of the masses. If certain 
classes have an inherent right to certain special privileges, 
it is the duty of the society of which they are members to 
see to it that they have the education that prepares them 
to make a right use of them. If it is the duty of another 

45 



46 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

class to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and to 
permit their so-called superiors to think for them on im- 
portant questions of government, then the education which 
would inflate them with the notion that they can think for 
themselves is an absurdity. 

The German School System. — It is indeed true that 
Germany not only offers education to all classes of Ger- 
man citizens, but makes a certain amount of it compulsory. 
But this policy of educating" the masses was entered upon 
because German statesmen and the members of the class 
entitled to special privileges by virtue of their birth realized 
that this was the only means through which the governing 
powers could regain the prestige of which they had been 
deprived by Napoleon, and the privileged class its position 
of importance in the State. But the same clearness of 
perception required them to recognize the fact that this 
education must be limited both in quantity and quality. 
For if the aristocracy of birth did not entitle its possessors 
to special educational advantages, how could it entitle 
them to special privileges .-* While, therefore, the German 
government does not erect barriers that make university 
education impossible to the lower classes, it does interpose 
obstacles which it is exceedingly difificult to surmount. The 
government says in substance to its citizens :" You are 
entitled to the completest possible development of your 
powers if you are members of a certain class ; otherwise, 
to that amount of education, and no more, which will make 
you useful to the government." Says Professor James E. 
Russell : "The greatest defect in the German school sys- 
tem is the organization which fosters distinctions of class 
and sex. The common schools are for the common people, 



DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. 4-7 

the real-schools are for the middle classes, the classical 
schools are for the aristocracy. ... If class prejudice 
did not exist, one high school could easily perform all the 
functions of secondary education by the simple arrange- 
ment of elective subjects. No such axiom as that the 
school exists for the pupil is recognized in German educa- 
tional philosophy. The German school exists primarily 
for the state. The pupil is a citizen in training. That he 
should be an obedient, legal, submissive subject is a self- 
evident truth. Respect for authority is the one essential 
prerequisite to German citizenship. In the selection of a 
school and the course of study, in seeking admission to the 
university and the vocations of civil life, the individual has 
little freedom of choice. The rigorous discipline of the 
schools, which brooks no opposition and tolerates no parental 
interference ; the methods of instruction, which leave nothing 
to chance-and individual initiative ; the system of privileges, 
which dominates teachers and pupils alike — all tend to 
the development of character which feels no restriction of 
personal liberty in the constant surveillance of the police 
and the rule of a military despotism. . . . German society 
is founded on the principle that the greatest good of each 
is included in the gi^eatest good of all, rather than on the 
principle that the greatest good of all is subserved by the 
highest individual development of each." ^ 

Professor Peck on Universal Education. — This is not said 
in criticism of the methods of education of aristocratic 
societies. As Plato held that the interests of the masses 
would be best promoted by absolute submission to a few 
thoroughly trained philosophers, so a man to-day may 
1 Russell's German Higher Schools, pp. 420, 421. 



48 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

hold that the interests of all classes will be best subserved 
by putting special privileges in the hands of an aristocracy. 
Nor is this view without representatives in the United 
States. Says Professor Harry Thurston Peck : " Linked 
closely with many other very serious educational mistakes, 
and from many points of view by far the most profoundly 
serious of them all, is that curious fancy that education in 
itself and for all human beings is a good and thoroughly 
desirable possession. So axiomatic is this held to be that 
its principle has been incorporated into the constitutions 
of many of our States, and not only is education made free 
to all, but in most States is made compulsory upon all. 
There is probably in our whole system to-day no principle 
so fundamentally untrue as this, and there is certainly 
none that is fraught with so much social and political peril 
for the future. For education means ambition, and ambi- 
tion means discontent." 

Nor are we left in doubt as to the political philosophy 
which underlies these views of education. " It [the 
university] should produce for the service of the State men 
such as those who in the past made empires and created 
commonwealths — a small and highly trained patriciate, a 
caste, an aristocracy, if you will. For every really great 
thing that has been accomplished in the history of man 
has been accomplished by an aristocracy. It may have 
called itself a sacerdotal or a military aristocracy, or an 
aristocracy based on birth and blood, yet these distinctions 
were but superficial ; for in reality it always meant one 
thing alone — the community of interest and effort in 
those whose intellectual force and innate gift of govern- 
ment enabled them to dominate and control the destinies 
of States, driving in harness the hewers of wood and 



DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. 



49 



drawers of water, who constitute the vast majority of the 
human race, and whose happiness is greater and whose 
welfare is more thoroughly conserved when governed than 
when governing." ' 

Who Shall Receive a Thorough Education According to 
Professor Peck ? — But how are we to determine who shall 
be members of this aristocracy } Shall we assume that 
the " children of the hewers of wood and the drawers of 
water " are fit for nothing but to follow in the footsteps of 
their parents, and that their welfare will therefore be most 
thoroughly conserved by blindly submitting to the guardi- 
anship of their betters .'' Plato saw that to select the 
class who were to rule, and therefore to receive a thorough 
education, simply on the basis of birth would be a manifest 
injury to society. Believing that heredity would generally 
insure to the children of his philosophers the possession of 
powers that entitled them to rule, he admitted that this 
would not always be so. He accordingly made it the duty 
of his philosophers, whom he endowed with infallible in- 
sight and absolute freedom from class spirit, to raise to 
the ruling class any children of the lower orders that pos- 
sessed exceptional abilities, and to give them the education 
of the aristocracy. 

But the defenders of aristocracy in our time, while admit- 
ting the injury done to society in particular cases by giving 
special privileges to birth, may contend that there is no 
way of avoiding it without inflicting greater injury in other 
directions. There can be, they may insist, no ideal system 
either of government or of education. If we could find in 
any society philosophers such as Plato dreamed of — men 
1 Cosmopolitan, 1897, pp. 269-271. 



50 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

endowed with infallible insight and entirely free from class 
spirit — and if the other members of society had the power 
of infallibly determining who the philosophers were and the 
wisdom to trust themselves to their guidance, then indeed 
we might have a Utopia in which each man should receive 
the education best adapted to prepare him for his proper 
work and do it. But none of these conditions has ever 
existed any where save in Plato's imagination. And in their 
absence no safer method, none that inflicts less injury on 
society, it may be argued, can be found than the one em- 
ployed by an aristocracy. That method assumes that the 
descendants of able men will have the special abilities which 
entitled their ancestors to special privileges, and that they, 
therefore, should receive the education befitting the mem- 
bers of the ruling class. 

The Relation of Education to Political Philosophy. — Let 

it be repeated that the contrasting postulates that under- 
lie aristocratic and republican forms of government respec- 
tively have not been presented for the purpose of discuss- 
ing them. That would be a work of supererogation in this 
countr)^, at least at this time. For though a considerable 
number of Americans doubtless hold the views of Professor 
Peck, at present we are safe in regarding them as constitut- 
ing too small a minority to be likely to influence action. 
But the object has been to show that there can be no intel- 
ligent discussion of education, especially in its elementary 
forms, unless it is based on a certain political philosophy. 
If the German political philosophy is true, then the Ger- 
man educational practice which discourages spontaneity in 
its elementary schools is wise. But if our American polit- 
ical philosophy is true, if that form of society is best in 



DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. 



51 



which there is no discrimination between man and man, if 
men as such have an inherent right, if not to equahty of 
opportunity, at least to freedom from artificial inequalities, 
then the thing to do is to work out an American theory of 
education based on the assumption that every member of 
society, without regard to birth, race, or sex, should receive 
that development of his or her powers which makes life 
most worth the living. 

The Philosophy of Education Should Assume the Truth 
of the Republican Theory. — But without attempting to 
discuss the abstract principles underlying the political 
philosophies of republican and aristocratic forms of govern- 
ment, it may not be amiss to point out that there are con- 
siderations of the most cogent character which justify us 
in assuming, at least from the standpoint of education, the 
truth of the republican theory. Let us grant, for the sake 
of argument, that the cultured and intelligent few alone 
have the "right" to rule, that the interests of all parties 
would be best subserved by restricting all power to them. 
There is no way of preventing the real or supposed inter- 
ests of one group of rulers from clashing with those of 
another. It is this conflict of interests between the dom- 
inant elements of one "nation " — which always practically 
means the rulers of a country — that has given rise to nine 
tenths of the wars of history. Now in war the immediate 
object — not ulterior and remote consequences — is bound 
to monopohze attention, and the immediate object is always 
victory. But the achievement of this object depends not 
merely on the quantity but on the quality of the force that 
is hurled against the adversary ; not merely on the number 
of soldiers but on their character, training, and intelligence. 



52 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

In this way the elevation of the intclHgence of the gov- 
erned may become a matter of importance to rulers. Re- 
garding the masses as mere means to the attainment of 
their own ends, looking upon themselves as the only crea- 
tures having an intrinsic right to consideration in the 
world, the few are likely, in the course of time, to be con- 
fronted with conditions which make it essential in the fur- 
therance of their objects to improve the quality of their 
tools. 

The Effect of Education on the Masses. — But the hu- 
man tool protests against being treated as a tool as soon 
as you begin to educate him. Perhaps he ought not to 
protest ; perhaps the well-being of society requires that he 
should look upon himself as having but one purpose in cre- 
ation, the hewing of wood and the drawing of water for his 
masters. Perhaps the widening of his own horizon, the 
illumination of his own mind, the enlargement of his own 
sympathies, the purifying of his own affections, the deepen- 
ing and quickening of his own sense of duty and of beauty, 
the improvement of the conditions of his own life, are 
really matters of no consequence in the scheme of life. Be 
it so ; the significant thing is, the moment you begin to 
educate him, the moment you begin to increase his value 
for your purposes, tJiat moment you implant in his mind 
the germ of the belief that from his point of view they are 
supremely important matters, and the more you educate 
him the more quickly you will cause that germ to de- 
velop. 

The Dilemma of Rulers. — This, then, is the dilemma of 
rulers : they must choose between the poor service of con- 



DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. 



S3 



tented but brutish workers and the far more effective but 
discontented service of intelligent men. The nearer the 
masses approach to the level of brutes, the more their 
aspirations are stifled, the more destitute they are of am- 
bition, the more contented and at the same time the less 
useful they are. Professor Peck is right : universal educa- 
tion means universal discontent. But he did not add that 
universal ignorance means universal incapacity. Contented 
ineffectiveness, discontented effectiveness — between these 
rulers must choose. 

For reasons already mentioned, the choice is likely in 
the course of time to be discontented efficiency. Disre- 
garding remote consequences, rulers are likely, sooner or 
later, to be confronted with conditions which make the 
accomplishment of their own purposes dependent on the 
elevation and education of their subjects. And this is one 
of the causes that tends to bring about democracy. (By 
this term I mean a society founded on the principle that 
" the greatest good of all is subserved by the highest indi- 
vidual development of each.") For when the discontent 
that education engenders takes possession of the masses, 
they begin to employ their own energies for a new purpose 
— the promotion of their own welfare. The tradition of 
uncounted centuries, that they are mere cogs in the social 
machine whose one function it is to grind out the interests 
of the nobility, no longer binds, and they begin to wonder 
whether the sun does not shine and the flowers bloom and 
the brooks murmur for them. The history of every pro- 
gressive people in the world is an illustration of this ; and 
the stationary peoples, whatever else they may be, are 
those whose rulers have not yet found it to their interest 
to educate the masses. 



54 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



Three Causes That Work Towards Democracy — We find, 
then, in the selfishness of the ruling classes, and in the 
discontent of the subject classes, two causes that work in 
the direction of democracy. But there is in the unselfish- 
ness of the ruling class a cause that works in the same 
direction. Unselfishness is as fundamental, if not as pow- 
erful, a characteristic of human nature as is its opposite. 
That it does not manifest itself more effectively, that it 
does not exert a more powerful influence in bringing on 
democracy, is due to the greater influence exerted by self- 
ishness upon men's beliefs. We always incline to believe 
what we wish to believe, and our selfishness makes us wish 
to believe that the sufferings and deprivations and con- 
tracted lives of the poor are part of the inevitable order of 
things, not the result of man's own work ; and we wish to 
believe this because, if the sufferings of the poor are inevi- 
table, we can indulge in the luxury of pity as we contem- 
plate them, without feeling under obligation to do anything 
about it. This explains why it happened that the unself- 
ishness of the North had more to do with effecting the 
overthrow of slavery than had the unselfishness of the 
South. Not that the unselfishness of the North was the 
only, perhaps not even the chief, factor in bringing about 
the result. One need not read far in the history of the 
antislavery struggle to become aware of the fact that oppo- 
sition to slavery was due to both the selfishness and the 
unselfishness of its opponents. The desire of the North 
for political power combined with its pity for the slave to 
free him. That the unselfishness of the South ^ in reference 

The existence of a strong antislavery sentiment in the South is 
proved by the fact that in 1827 one hundred and six of the one hundred 
and thirty antislavery societies in the United States outside of Illinois were 



DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. 



5S 



to slavery had so few visible results was by no means due 
to its absence, but to the fact that it had no support from 
the selfishness of Southern men. 

Now this philanthropic sentiment is another of the forces 
tending towards democracy that must be reckoned with. 
By itself so weak that history might safely neglect it, 
in conjunction with the forces already mentioned it may 
turn the scale in favor of results of world-wide importance. 
With one group of the ruling class seeking to improve the 
condition of the masses for its own selfish purposes, with 
the masses bent on having their own welfare treated as an 
end in itself, it ought not to be a matter of wonder if the 
members of the ruling class, whose humanitarianism is so 
intense as to cause them to forsake the standpoint of their 
class, should make an effective alliance with the masses 
in bringing about progress towards democracy. 

Progress of the World Towards Democracy. — This 
rough sketch may perhaps throw some light on the fact 
which De Tocqueville so long ago noted : the steady march 
of the world towards democracy. The peoples of the 
world may be divided into two classes — those that are 
stationary and those that are moving towards democracy. 
Whether that ought to be the trend of progress, let it be 
repeated, is not the question. Perhaps there is but one 
stable condition of society — the stability of fossilization, 
such as China has shown to the world since the dawn of 
history. But if there are two, the other is democracy. If 
a living, growing, progressive society has any stable form, 
it is that which treats every man as an end in himself, as 

in slaveholding States. For a fuller discussion of this subject see the 
author's " Political History of the United States," Vol. II. pp. 406, 407. 



^6 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

having an inalienable right to develop himself and pursue 
happiness without being hampered by artificial encum- 
brances. Whether such a form can be stable depends on 
the natural capacity of the average man and on his educa- 
tion. What his natural capacity is time alone can tell. 

The philosophy of education is bound, therefore, to 
say to such bodies politic as that of Germany : " You 
have no foundation in the nature of things. You are 
neither frankly feudal nor frankly democratic. You do 
not, like China, seek to suppress three fourths of the man ; 
nor do you, hke the United States, seek to develop the 
whole man — unless he belongs to certain classes. But 
between these types you must choose, since, from the 
nature of the case, no other can be permanent." 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. Illustrate by means of the German school system the connec- 
tion between education and the form of government. 

2. Why is Professor Peck opposed to universal education ? 

3. Who, in his opinion, should receive an education? 

4. What is the inevitable effect of education on the masses? 

5. What does the text mean by the dilemma of rulers? 

6. What are the three causes that work towards democracy? 

7. What are the two main conclusions of this chapter and on whal 
arguments do they depend ? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Which do you consider the more desirable state for a human 
being, content or discontent? 

2. Show that opponents of universal education ought logically to 
oppose republican government. 

3. What is the difference between regarding man as a tool and 
thinking of him as an end in himself ? 

4. Can you cite any examples from history that illustrate what the 
text calls the "dilemma of rulers " ? 



DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. 



57 



5. State the history of popular suffrage in this country, and point 
out its bearing on the argument. 

6. What is the Fifteenth Amendment, and why was it passed ? 

7. The text says that the philosophy of education must choose 
between the fossilization of China, and the progressiveness of the 
United States ; do you clearly see why.'' 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE END OF EDUCATION AS CONCEIVED BY THE 
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN. 

All intelligent action presupposes a conception of the 
end to be attained. What end does education seek to 
realize .'* 

The End of Education and Civilization. — A high author- 
ity intimates that the question is sufficiently answered by 
the demands of civilization. " The chief consideration," 
says the Report of the Committee of Fifteen, "to which 
all others are to be subordinated is this requirement of 
the civilization into which the child is born, as determining 
not only what he shall study in school, but what habits 
and customs he shall be taught in the family before the 
school age arrives ; as well as that he shall acquire a skilled 
acquaintance with some one of a definite series of trades, 
professions, or vocations in the years that follow school ; 
and furthermore, that this question of the relation of the 
pupil to his civilization determines what political duties he 
shall assume and what religious faith or spiritual aspirations 
shall be adopted for the conduct of his life.^ 

If this reasoning is good from the point of view of an 
American, it is equally good from that of a Chinaman. 
The education required by the civilization of the United 
States lays emphasis on reflection, on emancipation from 
tradition ; the education required by the civilization of 

1 L. c, p. 41. 
58 



THE END OF EDUCATION. ^g 

China emphasizes the supreme importance of adherence to 
ancient beliefs and customs. Ought education in the one 
country differ as widely from that in the other as do their 
respectiv'e civilizations ? Should education take no ac- 
count of the fundamental truths upon which each bases its 
civilization ? 

The civilization of Greece had as its root the inequality 
of man, the fundamental difference between Gfeek and 
barbarian. Our civilization is based upon the principle of 
the equality of man before the law. Ought the ancient 
Greeks to have been taught that it was right to make 
slaves of the barbarians .-' Ought they to have neglected 
the education of their women ? 

The civilization of the South before the Civil War was 
based on the assumption that the nature of the negro was 
such that his own interest, as well as that of society in 
general, required that he should be held as a slave ; must 
the philosophy of education hold that it was wise for 
Southern parents to teach this doctrine to their children ? 

There is, indeed, another construction which may be 
given to the paragraph quoted from the Report of the 
Committee of Fifteen. It may mean to say that a man 
must accept the fundamental ideas of the civilization in 
which he is born, however widely they may depart from 
the truth, as the condition of helpful co-operation with his 
fellows. And since education means to prepare him for 
such co-operation, it must inculcate in him the beliefs 
without which helpful work is impossible. But this put- 
ting of the case begs the question. What is helpful 
co-operation .'' Is it to conform in all important particu- 
lars to the beliefs and practices insisted upon by public 
opinion ? So thought the ancient Athenians, who put 



6o A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

Socrates to death because he did not co-operate with them 
in what they regarded as a helpful way. In common with 
every other man who has dared to lay a sacrilegious hand 
on the customs and traditions of his community he met. 
with violent opposition. But was it Aristophanes, the 
conformist, or Socrates, the nonconformist, who was most 
helpful to his fellows } What is it China needs to-day so 
much as thinkers who can arouse the Chinese from 
the sleep of tradition and open their minds to truth 1 
Surely it must be granted that that man confers the 
greatest benefits on his fellows who does most to influence 
them to live a rational life. 

Must Education Conform to the Principles of a Given 
Civilization ? — It may indeed be said that a system of 
education which is fundamentally at variance with the 
principles of a given civilization would not be tolerated 
within the sphere of that civilization. We know what 
would happen to an American who should teach his pupils 
that the only way in which they could make the most of 
life was by following the teaching of Confucius. 

If it were entirely true that an education at variance 
with the principles of a given civilization must be futile, it 
is surely one thing for the philosophy of education to 
recognize that its protest against irrational methods and 
practices which are sanctioned by tradition and in harmony 
with civilization must be futile, and quite another for it to 
become the mere mouthpiece of civilization and of the 
traditions that underlie it. 

But it is not wholly true. Reason is the only weapon 
with which the mind can combat error. If it is true that 
society will not permit to be taught in its schools ideas 



TTIE END OF EDUCATION. 6 1 

entirely out of harmony with its civiHzation, it is equally 
true that it is possible to modify the school by modifying 
the character of the civilization upon which it is based. 
"A majority of one with truth on its side is an eventual 
majority." If truth is on one side and civilization on the 
other, he who sees what he believes to be the truth should 
teach it in the sure faith that the world will come his w^ay 
in the course of time. 

But, on second thought, it is evident that this may be 
conceived too abstractly. It is indeed true that the 
progress of society is conditioned upon the fact that there 
are individuals in it who rise above their environment. 
It is thus that the development, step by step, of the human 
race from its primitive state in prehistoric time to civiliza- 
tion has been brought about. The various arts and inven- 
tions which, on the material side, serve to register this 
progress -are illustrations of this truth. Every one of them 
is the development of an idea first existent in the mind of 
an individual. 

But to say that the progress of society depends upon 
individuals is to state only half the truth. Unless the 
community which constitutes the social environment of 
the individual approves of his new ideas, unless it adopts 
them, so to speak, they are without significance for it. 

As Professor Baldwin says,^ " The problem of the inven- 
tion itself, considered as a factor in human progress, is 
quite different from the problem of the inventor, con- 
sidered as a man. The invention cannot be an element in 
human progress unless it enter into the network of social 
relationships in some way. If it do not, it may be a thing 

1 Baldwin's Mental Development : Ethical and Social Interpretations, 
p. 172. 



62 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

of great ingenuity and originality, but that only makes it a 
part of the problem of the origin of the man. It then 
loses its interest as a thing of social value." 

The Educational Statesman. — This is only saying that 
the position of the educational statesman differs widely 
from that of the educational philosopher. While the latter 
endeavors to ascertain the end which under ideal circum- 
stances education should seek to realize, and the methods 
which should be employed under ideal conditions in attain- 
ing it, the former tries to make the best possible compro- 
mise between truth and the assumptions underlying the 
civilization with which he is dealing. It is his duty to 
incorporate into the school as much of truth as society will 
tolerate. To act the part of a mere doctrinaire, to dis- 
regard public opinion and flout prevalent prejudices, would 
be to forget that social progress depends not merely on 
the propagation of new and fruitful ideas, but upon their 
entertainment and endorsement by society. The blunder 
of the doctrinaire is indeed much more serious than this. 
The man who seeks to force on society ideas for which it 
is not ready, which do such violence to its conservative 
instincts as to make acceptance of those ideas impossible 
— even if they are true — succeeds only in earning for him- 
self the reputation of a " crank." 

And this is the point of view from which the Report of 
the Committee of Fifteen should be judged. It discussed 
the question of educational values and courses of study for 
American schools. From such a standpoint, the character 
of American civilization, American government, American 
religious opinions must not be lost sight of. But if the 
educational statesman is to make the best terms he can for 



THE END OF EDUCATION. S;^ 

educational philosophy, if he is to get all the truth in rela- 
tion to education which society will tolerate into the school, 
he must know what the truth is. If, in a word, while so 
far adapting his courses of study and methods of instruction 
to the civilization of his country as to keep them in a gen- 
eral way in harmony with it, he is nevertheless not to lose 
sight of the ideals which he should seek to realize and of 
the methods which he should employ were society to give 
him a free hand, he must know what these ideals and 
methods are, he must know the ideals which the school 
should seek to realize if it had regard only to the interests 
of the growing human mind, and he must know what 
methods should be employed in attaining them. We are 
bound, then, to try to determine the end which education 
under ideal circumstances should seek to realize. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. State and criticise the end of education as conceived by the 
Committee of Fifteen. 

2. What is the comparison between Socrates and Aristophanes 
intended to show ? 

3. Why will a minority of one with truth on his side be an event- 
ual majority ? 

4. Illustrate at length the difference between the educational 
statesman and the educational philosopher. 

5. What does Professor Baldwin mean by the difference between 
the problem of the invention and that of the inventor? 

6. From what standpoint may the Report be defended ? 

7. Why cannot a man be an educational statesman without being 
an educational philosopher ? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Why is it desirable to consider the end of education at all ? 

2. Do you think that most teachers have clear ideas on this 
subject? 



64 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

3. What would happen if a man should seek to build a house 
without deciding what sort of a house he would build ? 

4. Do you think that results of the same sort are the consequence 
of attempting to teach without having clear ideas of what we wish to 
accomplish ? 

5. Who wrote the Report of the Committee of Fifteen? 

6. Give examples from your own observation to show the necessity 
of educational statesmanship. 

7. How did the superintendent of schools in the neighboring town 
decide upon a course of study ? 

8. Can there be any intelligent consideration of such a question 
that is not based on a clear perception of the end of education ? 

9. What is meant by educational values ? 

10. Can you determine the educational value of a subject if you 
have not determined the end of education ? 

11. What is a good school ? 

12. Can you answer that question if you do not know what the end 
of education is? 



CHAPTER V. 

THE END OF EDUCATION AS CONCEIVED BY 
MR. HERBERT SPENCER AND DR. DEWEY. 

Education Preparation for Rational Living. — The end 

of education may be provisionally stated as preparation for 
rational living. This statement ought to be acceptable to 
all parties. For whatever the ends you have in view, you 
cannot reach them without the employment of reason. If 
you say with Plato that the nature of the vast majority of 
men makes it their duty to submit absolutely to the guid- 
ance and direction of a few highly trained minds, then 
such submission is rational, and the education that deter- 
mines who the highly gifted few are and that disposes 
the many to submit to the few is preparation for rational 
living. If with Aristotle you hold that the incapacity of 
the majority makes it their duty either to be slaves of 
individuals or the servants of a community, then submission 
to such service is the rational thing for those who ought to 
submit to it. If with the same philosopher you maintain 
that contemplation, thought, reflection, is the highest thing 
in life, then you will hold that the training for this activ- 
ity of those who are qualified for it is training which pre- 
pares for rational living. If with the Stoics you believe 
that the wise man is he who concentrates his attention 
upon himself, on his own moral development, then you will 
believe that a life in harmony with this conception is a 
rational life. If with Epicurus you contend that individual 

65 



GG A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

happiness is the true end of hfe, then you will contend 
that rational living is living intelligently devoted to its 
realization. 

If, with what seems to be the public opinion of our time, 
you hold that he succeeds best who accumulates most 
wealth, then you will hold that the education that best 
prepares men to make money is preparation for rational 
living. If with some society people you believe that 
"cutting a dash" — giving the finest dinners and the 
smartest receptions, wearing the costliest diamonds and 
the handsomest gowns — is the most desirable thing in the 
world, then you will believe that the education that makes 
this possible is preparation for rational living. 

But if people of the most widely divergent ideas of edu- 
cation can agree in regarding it as preparation for rational 
living, it is evident that such a description has no value for 
science. Granting that the thing to do is to live a rational 
life, and the proper education that which prepares us for 
it, the question at once arises : What ends shall rational 
living seek to realize, and what is the education that will 
enable us to do it .■' 

Mr. Spencer's Description of Complete Living. — Her- 
bert Spencer has attempted to answer these questions in 
language which seems at first sight transparently clear. 
Education, he says, is preparation for complete living, and 
complete living consists in dealing wisely with one's mind 
and body, in training one's children and earning a liveli- 
hood intelligently, in performing one's duty to his family 
and society, and in making a wise use of one's leisure time. 
Now, satisfactory as this may seem to the casual reader, it 
really hides a host of difficulties. In the first place, a 



THE END OF EDUCATION. 



67 



number of the constituents of complete living, to use Mr. 
Spencer's phrase, mean absolutely nothing until we know 
the very thing which they profess to tell us. The end of 
education is complete living, we are told, and one of the 
things we must do in order to live completely is to train our 
children wisely. But how can you train your children 
wisely unless you have a true ideal of life, a true concep- 
tion of that which really makes it worth the living .'' Do 
you think that intelligent selfishness is the only wise thing 
in life ? Then you will train your children wisely, from 
your point of view, when you have done all you can to dis- 
courage any altruistic "nonsense." If you think that the 
making of money is the fundamental matter, then you will 
regard the training which disposes them to make every- 
thing subordinate to it and employ successful means in ac- 
quiring it as the wisest possible training. In order to live 
completely, also, we must earn a livelihood. But by what 
principles are we to be guided in doing it ? Shall we adopt 
the code of many business men and say that any method 
is good which accomplishes its purpose and enables us to 
avoid the clutches of the law ? Shall we in earning a live- 
lihood seek to concentrate our attention on the service we 
are trying to render to society, or shall we regard our busi- 
ness as a sort of economic prize-fight in which our duty to 
ourselves obliges us to knock out our competitors without 
regard to the consequences to themselves and their families ? 
I must also perform my duty as a citizen in order to live 
completely. But that, again, is a phrase that does not 
mean very much until one knows what his duty to his coun- 
try requires. Shall I say, " My country right or wrong " ? 
And if you tell me that I am only to uphold my country 
when it is right, that an important part of my duty as a 



68 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

citizen consists in the supervision of my country's conduct 
so that I may by my vote call to account those who are re- 
sponsible when it goes astray, I need to know the standard 
which you would have me apply when I am dealing with 
my country. Is the golden rule for individuals, not for 
nations .'' Is it right to bully a weak nation like Mexico, 
and goad it to war, if the weaker nation has a lower civili- 
zation than the stronger, and if the result of the war will 
enable the powerful nation to enforce its civilization on a 
part of the territory of the weak one .'' Is it the duty of 
civilized nations to extend their civilization over less civil- 
ized countries, even at the cost of war, as Aristotle con- 
tended that it might be their duty to go to war in order to 
compel the citizens of less civilized countries to occupy 
their proper positions as slaves ? Is it the first duty of a 
man in office to promote the interests of himself, then of 
his personal friends, then of his party, then of his State, 
then of his section, and last of all, if he has any energy 
left over, of his country as a whole ? 

Conflict of Duties. — Let us waive these difficulties, let 
us suppose that we know what principles should guide us 
in training our children and earning a livelihood, and in 
our work as citizens ; there yet remain other questions 
which must be answered before one is in a position to live 
his life according to knowledge. I am not earning a liveli- 
hood when I am training my children, nor am I, except in 
an indirect way, performing my duty as a citizen. When 
these duties conflict, by what principle am I guided ? 
Manifestly this question cannot be answered precisely. 
We feel that the street-car conductor who was obliged to 
work such long hours that his children scarcely knew him 



THE END OF EDUCATION. 



69 



acted wisely if that was the only occupation in which he 
could earn a livelihood. But a lawyer who neglects his 
family in order to employ all his waking hours in swelling 
an already sufficient income deserves our censure. The 
mother who should neglect the training of her children in 
order to devote herself to missionary work would blunder 
seriously if not criminally. But it is equally certain that 
the emergencies can rarely arise which would justify us in 
the complete neglect of all civic and social obligations. 

Nevertheless, however sure we may be in extreme cases, 
there are numerous instances on the border line when the 
most thoughtful person must be in doubt. A pronounced 
blue and a pronounced green are very easily distinguished, 
but who shall say at what point in the spectrum blue be- 
comes green, or green blue .'' In like manner, it is clear 
that a father should devote a certain amount of attention 
to the training of Mils children, and some time to his duties 
as a citizen ; but who can say how much time he shall 
give to each, or when the one duty becomes so urgent that 
the other must give way to it .-* Perhaps Socrates was 
right in neglecting his family for the sake of his fellow 
citizens, but we feel that nothing short of the genius of 
Socrates would justify such a course. 

The Development of Character as the End of Education. 
— Dr. Dewey says that the end of education is the devel- 
opment of character, and by character he means a percep- 
tion of the interests of society, and the power and disposi- 
tion to promote them. Whoever sees the true interests of 
society and has the power and disposition to promote 
them, he and he alone, says Dr. Dewey, deserves to be 
called educated. 



70 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



Now in criticising this definition I do not wish to be un- 
derstood as disagreeing with it. On the contrary, I wish 
at the outset to say that I regard it as asserting by impH- 
cation a very important truth : that the true interest of the 
individual and that of society are identical. My criticism' 
of the definition is that it does not tell us in what the in- 
terests either of the individual or of society are to be 
found. To be told that the interests of the individual are 
the same as those of society tells me nothing unless I 
know what the interests of society are. To be told that 
the interests of society are the same as those of the indi- 
vidual leaves me entirely in the dark unless I know what 
the interests of the individual are. The teacher has to 
deal with a lot of psychological raw material, and he 
wishes to know what he shall try to make of it, toward 
what ideal he shall seek to have it shape itself. Is it not 
evident that the one thing that he needs to know is in 
what the true interests of the individual lie ? And is it 
not equally clear that you are giving him no positive con- 
ception when you tell him that the interests of the indi- 
vidual consist in such a development of his powers as will 
enable him to see and respond to the interests of society ? 
I say, no positive conception ; there is a negative idea of 
very great value in Dr. Dewey's definition. He says that 
the material, selfish view of education is not the true one : 
so far it is good. But when we ask for a positive state- 
ment of the end of education, his definition gives us noth- 
ing but words. It tells us that it consists in such a train- 
ing of the individual as will promote the interests of 
society. But it does not tell us in what the interests 
either of the individual or of society consist. 



THE END OF EDUCATION. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 



71 



1. Show the indefiniteness of the statement that education is prep- 
aration for complete living. 

2. In what does the vagueness of Spencer's statement consist? 

3. What does a father need to know in order to train his children 
wisely ? 

4. Show that Mr. Spencer's formula does not impart that knowl- 
edge. 

5. What is meant by conflict of duties? 

6. What does Dr. Dewey mean by character? 

7. Why is his conception of the end of education unsatisfactory ? 

8. What valuable negative idea is contained in it? 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Would it help a teacher to tell him that he ought to seek to 
train perfect men and women, and, if not, why not? 

2. Would it help him to tell him that a perfect man takes proper 
care of his body and mind, trains his children, and performs his duty 
as a citizen intelligently, and uses his leisure time wisely ? 

3. Does a man know what he ought to try to make of himself 
when he knows that he cannot be what he ought without having the 
interests of society at heart? 

4. Is it possible for you to have a clear opinion as to the interests 
of society until you have reached a clear opinion as to your own 
interests ? 

5. What are your interests ? 

6. Show that Mr. Spencer and Dr. Dewey have made the same 
mistake. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 

In view of the conclusions reached in the preceding 
chapter, it would seem that an attempt to give some sort 
of scientific basis to the work of education must of neces- 
sity end in failure. If a work is to rest on a scientific 
foundation, it is apparent that its object must be deter- 
mined with absolute definiteness ; but the precise deter- 
mination of the end of education seems to be involved in 
almost hopeless difficulties. 

The Unclearness of the Fundamental Conceptions of 
Science. — But there are few more remarkable things in 
the world than the fact that great results are constantly- 
being achieved with very poor tools. While it would seem 
to be self-evident that there can be no such thing as science 
unless the ideas that lie at its foundation are definite, it 
has been shown again and again that these ideas are woe- 
fully lacking in definiteness. We seem to know what we 
mean when we use the terms space, time, matter, motion, 
substance, cause, until we begin to reflect upon them. 
But the more we consider them, the more we are con- 
vinced that ultimate scientific ideas cannot be precisely 
determined. Nevertheless, while the metaphysician and 
the logician are contending about the nature of the tools 
which science is obliged to use, the latter slowly piles dis- 
covery on discovery, thus giving a practical demonstration 

72 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 



73 



of the fact that it is able to use the tools at hand in an 
effective way. 

In like manner, although the teacher may not have an 
accurate notion of the purpose of education, it will be ad- 
mitted that a discussion which diminishes by ever so little 
the indefiniteness of his ideas will decrease his inefficiency. 
Admitting, then, our inability to reach preciseness, let us 
see what can be done in the way of making our concep- 
tion of the end of education more definite. 

Conclusions as to the End of Education not Susceptible of 
Proof. — First of all, it behooves us to inquire whether 
there are any things in the world that are absolutely 
good — good, that is to say, not as means to ends, but in 
and of themselves. In considering this question, it must 
be borne in mind that, in the nature of the case, it is not 
susceptible of proof. The very fact that a thing is as- 
sumed to be good in and of itself involves the necessity of 
assuming it without proof, either on the testimony of one's 
individual consciousness or on that of the world in general. 
For a thing which could be proved to be good would follow 
as a logical consequence from some higher good — would 
be good, not as an end, but as a means to an absolute 
good. If, for example, pleasure is assumed to be an abso- 
lute good, then anything which ministers to pleasure will 
be a good because of its relation to pleasure — will be a 
mediate, a relative, not an absolute good. Evidently, then, 
in endeavoring to ascertain what the absolute good or 
goods are, our method is determined for us by the very 
nature of the inquiry. We must investigate the con- 
sciousness of the world, and then submit the answers we 
receive to the scrutiny of our individual consciousness. 



74 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

It may not be out of place here to point out that the 
method of mvestigation which the nature of the subject 
prescribes is by no means singular. Professor Ormond 
has shown that all the things we seem to ourselves to 
know may be put in one or the other of three classes : 
things known through lower immediacy, things known 
through mediacy, and things known through higher im- 
mediacy. 

Things Known Through Lower Mediacy As examples 

of the first class we may cite our knowledge of divers 
states of consciousness, of the external world, and of the 
axioms of mathematics. All men know intuitively the 
various pleasures and pains they experience, the existence 
of some sort of external reality, and the truth of a propo- 
sition, such as, A straight line is the shortest distance 
between two points. Since they are known immediately, 
not as the result of processes of reasoning, they are ex- 
amples of things known through immediacy. And since 
in order to be known they do not require any special 
development on the part of the individual or of the society 
which constitutes his social environment, they are illustra- 
tions of things known through lower immediacy. 

Things Known Through Mediacy. — What we know 
through mediacy includes everything that we have learned 
through processes of reasoning, whether inductive or de- 
ductive. Not merely the conclusions of science, but those 
which we reach from day to day in the performance of our 
ordinary pursuits, and in our observations of men and 
things, are examples of this class. 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 7^ 

Things Known Through Higher Immediacy. — If we 
make a survey of the beliefs by which our lives are guided, 
we shall find that some of the most fundamental and far- 
reaching of them cannot be twisted so as to fit into either 
of these classes. Every normal American, for example, 
believes in the practical universality of law, and in the real- 
ity of distinctions of right and wrong, which should govern 
man as man in all his dealings with his fellows. But 
these beliefs are, so to speak, late achievements of the hu- 
man race. They are a part of the social inheritance of 
civilized man, a part of the system of beliefs whicn the 
growing mind absorbs from society and which it finds con- 
stantly confirmed by its experience. But they differ from 
the first class above mentioned in that they are entirely 
unnecessary to the mature mind as such. It is inconceiv- 
able that a human being could ever have been in doubt as 
to the reality of his pleasures and pains, and as to the ex- 
istence of some sort of external reality. And that only 
amounts to saying that the very nature of the mind is such 
that it must accept these things as realities. But this is 
far from being the case with the class of beliefs we are 
considering. For not only is it possible to suppose a 
mature and powerful mind not believing in the universality 
of law and in the reality of ethical distinctions which should 
govern man as man in his dealings with his fellows ; we 
are taught by anthropology that, as a matter of fact, these 
beliefs come late in the scale of human development. We 
know that even now they are held only by the most highly 
civilized peoples, and that within the historic period they 
were not entertained by the most advanced peoples. 
Even Plato, the man who makes such "havoc of our origi- 
nahties," believed that right and wrong were one thing 



76 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

between Greek and Greek, and another between Greek and 
barbarian. 

Having admitted that the reality of duty and the uni- 
versality of law which I' have cited as examples of higher 
immediacy are believed by civilized men, not by thinking 
them out, but because those things have become established 
conventions, it may be urged that, in the last analysis, 
there is no difference between those beliefs and beliefs of 
the second class ; that, as we accept them on the authority 
of society, precisely as we do the Copernican theory, 
society, or some member of it, really originated them in 
the same way that Copernicus evolved his theory. 

An adequate reply to this objection would involve an 
excursion into the domain of metaphysics which cannot 
here be undertaken. I must content myself with pointing 
out that while it is easily conceivable that a normal mind 
may not entertain those beliefs which we have been con- 
sidering as examples of higher immediacy, it is impossible 
to imagine a man, in howsoever low a stage of development, 
as not having conceptions which, when logically developed 
and freed from all inner contradictions, would lead to those 
beliefs. A man without any belief in law would be un- 
able to profit by experience. That fire once burnt him, 
that water once quenched his thirst, that food once nour- 
ished him, would constitute to his mind no reason for 
believing that these causes could be depended on to pro- 
duce the same effects. Such a being could not live in the 
world. Nature would crush him utterly and remorse- 
lessly. 

In like manner, it is impossible for man to live alone, 
and he cannot live with his fellows without some sort of 
ethical creed. We sometimes say that the hand of this or 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 



77 



that man is raised against all his fellows. Such a state- 
ment is wide of the truth. There is always some one, 
generally some group of men, with whom the most hard- 
ened man considers himself under obligations to keep 
faith. We all know the meaning of the proverb, " There 
is honor even among thieves." What we need to note here 
is that the proverb not only states a fact, but illustrates 
a profound sociological truth. Man can exist, as Plato 
long ago taught, only provided in his dealings with some 
of his fellows, at least, he assumes that there is such a 
thing as right. The bad man of whatever type — criminal, 
corrupt politician, dishonest business man — • will be found, 
as a rule, to derive all his power from the fact that he is 
not wholly bad, from the fact that there is always a larger 
or smaller group to whom he feels himself "in honor 
bound." An utterly bad man is a man with a minimum 
of power, for evil, a man whom society is sure to hound to 
destruction sooner or later. 

We see, then, that the difference between the attitude 
of what we may call prehistoric man -and that of the 
highest product of civilization towards the beliefs which 
we have been considering is this : the former believed in 
law as governing some of the events which came under his 
observation — fire always burns, food always nourishes ; the 
latter believes in law as coextensive with the universe. 
The former believed in ethical distinctions as holding, first, 
between the members of his family, later as applied to his 
tribe or clan, and later still as applied to his city or state. 
The latter believes in those distinctions as holding between 
man and man. In other words, the slow evolution and 
growth of society have enabled it to make explicit and 
universal some of the beliefs which were held in an 



7 8 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

implicit, particular form by primitive man ; and these 
beliefs, become explicit and general, are examples of higher 
immediacy. 

All this may seem an unnecessary digression. It has 
been entered upon because the opinion is prevalent among 
educated men that all of their beliefs are the results of 
processes of reasoning. To say to such men that they are 
expected to believe certain things without proof seems an 
insult to their intelligence. As to a business man it would 
seem inconceivably absurd to be asked to give something 
for nothing, not as a matter of charity but as a matter of 
business, so to these men it seems "unscientific " to believe 
what they cannot prove : and to be unscientific is to be an 
intellectual barbarian. This digression will have accom- 
plished its purpose if it succeeds in suggesting that after 
all there was a profound truth expressed by St, Anselm 
when he said, " I believe that I may know " — if it succeeds 
in making clear the fact that though what may be pro- 
posed as the ends of education and of life are not matters 
that are susceptible of proof, we may nevertheless be 
bound as rational beings to accept them as true. 

One of these ends may be illustrated by the following 
passage from the Greek poet Euripides : 

" Happy is he who has learned 
To search out the secret of things, 
Not to the townsmen's bane, 
Neither for aught tliat brings 
An unrighteous gain. 
But the ageless order he sees 
Of nature that cannot die, 
And the cause whence it springs, 
And the how and the why. 
Never have thoughts like these 
To a deed of dishonor been turned." 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 



79 



Intellectual Activity an Ultimate Good. — The meaning 
of this is unmistakable : there is one thing, at any rate, 
which is good in and of itself — intellectual activity, 
searching out the secret of things, contemplation of the 
ageless order of nature and the causes that originated it. 
The philosopher Anaxagoras, who, when asked what made 
life worth living, answered, " The contemplation of the 
heavens and of the universal cosmic order," bore testimony 
to the same fact. 

The Platonic Socrates expressed the same conviction 
when he told his fellow citizens upon his trial that he 
preferred death rather than life without inquiry and specu- 
lation ; that if they would let him go free if he would dis- 
continue it, he would reply : " Men of Athens, I honor 
and love you ; . . . but while I have life and strength I 
shall never cease from the practice and teaching of phi- 
losophy,, exhorting any one whom I must after my manner, 
and convincing him, saying, ' O my friend, why do you, 
who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of 
Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount 
of money and honor and reputation, and so little about 
wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the 
soul .? '" 

Plato, in making the supreme good of life to consist in 
wisdom, and this in the contemplation of those eternal 
essences which make the existence of all particular things 
possible, gave utterance to the same truth. 

So also Aristotle: "Of all activities," he says, "theo- 
rizing is the most delightful and the best ; so that if God 
always has such happiness as we have in our highest 
moments, it is wonderful, and still more wonderful if he 
has more. Of all virtues, this is the most self-sufficing ; 



8o A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

for while, in common with every other virtue, it pre- 
supposes the indispensable conditions of life, wisdom does 
not, like justice and temperance and courage, need human 
objects for its exercise : theorizing may go on in perfect 
solitude. . . . All other pursuits are exercised for some 
end lying outside themselves — war entirely for the sake 
of peace, and statesmanship in great part for the sake of 
honor and power ; but theorizing yields no extraneous 
profit great or small, and is loved for itself alone." 

Likewise Wordsworth when he said : "To me the mean- 
est flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie 
too deep for tears." Thus, too, George Eliot when, in her 
first story, she makes one of her characters say : " Depend 
upon it, my dear lady, you would gain unspeakably if you 
would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the 
pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience 
of the human soul, that looks out through dull gray eyes, 
and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones." 

Witness, finally, the modern scientific specialist who is 
indifferent to money, and sometimes neglectful of his 
family, in order that he may devote himself the more to his 
researches. Like Lavoisier, who asked for a postponement 
of his execution that he might perform certain experiments, 
he is inclined to value life itself only as it gives him an 
opportunity for investigation. 

Evidence of the conviction that what Aristotle calls the 
theorizing activity is at least one of the absolute goods is 
found in quarters where we would least expect it. Few 
things are more pathetic than the struggle between the 
piety of the early Christian and his love of knowledge. 
Excusing himself to himself for his devotion to the scraps 
of knowledo^e that circulated under the name of the seven 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 8 1 

liberal arts, on the ground that they were essential to the 
ends of piety — arithmetic, in calculating Easter, and so 
on — he yet shows in unmistakable ways the ineradicable 
love of knowledge in and for itself. Even the modern 
business man, consumed, as he often is, with his passion 
for wealth, shows, by the attention which he bestows upon 
his morning paper, that there is something in his experi- 
ence which would enable him in a quiet hour to understand 
and appreciate the scholar's thirst for knowledge. And 
the consciousness of every mian bears testimony to the 
truth affirmed by all of these witnesses. Every one of us 
knows, and knows with a certainty that needs no aid of 
logic, that thought, the play of the mind about the facts 
of the world and of life, is at least one of the things that 
make life worth living. 

This, then, is one of the ends which education shall set 
before itself : the development of the power to think — not 
simply as a means to other ends, but because the exercise 
of thought is intrinsically good, a thing to be desired for 
itself alone. 

The Appreciation of Beauty Another Ultimate Good. — Is 

there anything else which we have a right to pronounce 
good in and of itself .'' Surely. Recall the day when, late 
in August, you took a drive through the country along the 
shore of a river sleepily winding its way towards the sea, 
its banks guarded by tall old sycamores whose leaves here 
and there gave a hint that autumn was coming, and as your 
eye took in the panorama that spread itself out before 
you — grazing sheep, fields of yellow corn, brooks hurrying 
to the river through groves of green trees, — and as your 
ear drank in the melodies of the country sounds — tinkling 



82 A BROADER P:LEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

cow-bells, humming insects, songs of birds, voices of chil- 
dren at play, — perhaps those beautiful lines of George 
• Eliot passed through your mind : 

" It seemed the light was never loved before. 
Now each one says, 'Twill go and come no more ; 
No budding branch, no pebble from the brook, 
No form, no shadow, but new dearness took 
From the one thought that life must have an end." 

Recall all this and, say, did you not find that it was good } 
Surely the beauty of nature, the beauty of art ■ — whether 
in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, or literature, — 
beauty of any kind, gives life intrinsic value. For him 
who has the eye to see it, beauty, like thought, has an 
intrinsic right to a place among the realities of the world. 
He who demands to know why our children should be 
trained to an appreciation of the beautiful only proves by 
his question that he does not know what beauty is, that it 
is to him a mere name. 

Moral Character Another Ultimate Good. — Is there any 
other absolute good discernible .? In the passage already 
quoted Aristotle says that theorizing activity does not re- 
quire the co-operation of others, and the same may be said 
of the appreciation of the beautiful. But there is a third 
absolute good that education should seek to realize. We 
may call it the moral good — which depends chiefly, if not 
entirely, on our relations with other men. It consists in 
the practical recognition of the fact that the rights of others 
have the same validity as ours, and that we cannot trespass 
upon them without losing the best things of life. The 
man who questions this only proves that he has had no 
experience of this good. To him who yields himself to it 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 83 

it speaks in terms of such persuasiveness, and at the same 
time of such authority, as to leave no doubt of its right to 
the homage which it receives. 

Friendship and Domestic Affection Ultimate Goods. — Is 

there a fourth absolute good at which education should 
aim ? Students of Aristotle have noted his fine distinc- 
tion of true and false self-love, the latter consisting in the 
attempt to secure for one's self the greatest share of 
money, honor, and bodily pleasure ; the former, in the 
attempt to secure for one's self the absolute goods of life. 
They have also observed that in the opinion of the Stagyrite 
true self-love will lead a man to treat a friend as another 
self. The good man, the true lover of himself, may even 
give up wealth, position, life itself for the sake of his 
friend, in order that he may realize thereby the greatest 
good of "life. From this description it is evident that 
friendship, that " partnership of speech and thought in 
which the distinctive life of man consists,"^ was regarded 
by Aristotle as one of the things that have absolute worth, 
one of the things that make life worth living. Was Aris- 
totle right .'* No one will doubt it who knows the meaning 
of friendship. 

Can we find any other absolute good ? Thousands of 
admirers of Socrates have asked themselves in perplexity 
and pain whether even for the sake of the great service 
which he rendered to humanity he had a right to neglect 
his family. And few readers of PJicedo have doubted that 
the classic beauty of the Platonic Socrates as he is pre- 
sented in that immortal dialogue is marred by his lack of 
regard for his family. Throughout the universe these feel- 

1 Educational Review, i9oi,p. 249. 
56 



84 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

ings are only the expression of the universal feeling of 
humanity — that domestic affection fills a place in human 
character and human life that nothing else can take. 

Sympathy, also, an Absolute Good. — Sympathy, also, is 
one of the things that give absolute value to life. It is 
indeed true, as Wordsworth said, that 

" Men live by admiration, hope, love ; 
And even as tliese are well and -wisely fixed, 
In dignity of being we ascend." 

But the human brute that sympathizes v^ith his fellow 
brutes is less of a brute than one who does not. What he 
needs for his transformation and uplifting is, not less sym- 
pathy, but a change in its direction. And we feel that the 
value of sympathy is not exhausted by the fact that it has 
a close relation to action. It is indeed a notorious fact that 
sympathy often leads to unwise action. The existence of 
the tramp profession, if the expression may be pardoned, 
would be impossible, if it were not for misdirected sym- 
pathy. But all know that if the mischief is to be remedied 
without inflicting any injury on society, it must be, not by 
decreasing sympathy, but by increasing intelligence. The 
man who is conscious of a strong impulse to help the 
undeserving, but who refrains from doing it because he 
knows he is thereby putting a premium on shiftlessness 
and degradation, is surely a better type of man than he 
who has no impulse to help them. 

Loyalty an Ultimate Good. — We cannot undertake to 
enumerate all the things of the mind that give value to life, 
but one more may be mentioned — loyalty. Froude tells 
us that "between the lords [of the Middle Ages] and 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 85 

their feudatories there were links of genuine loyalty which 
drew high and low together as they have not been drawn 
since the so-called chains have been broken. ... No fact 
of history is more certain than that the peasants born on 
the great baronies looked up to these lords of theirs with 
real and reverent affection. . . . Custom dies hard, and 
this feeling of feudal loyalty has lingered into our own times 
with very little to support it. Carlyle once told me of a 
lawsuit pending in Scotland affecting the succession of a 
great estate of which he had known something. The case 
depended on a family secret known only to one old servant, 
who refused to reveal it. A Kirk minister was sent to tell 
her that she must speak on peril of her soul. ' Peril of my 
soul ! ' she said. ' And would ye put the honor of an auld 
Scottish family in competition with the soul of a poor crea- 
ture like me .? '" I think the thrill of admiration that we 
experience when we hear such a story is the mind's spon- 
taneous recognition of the fact that loyalty, however mis- 
guided, is one of the things that enrich life. 

It is, then, things of the mind alone that have absolute 
worth, that make life worth living. And these things of 
the mind are (i) what Aristotle calls the theorizing ac- 
tivity, the apprehension of an isolated fact in wider and 
wider circles of relations, until to the poetic temperament 
the " meanest flower that blows suggests thoughts too deep 
for tears," and eyes and tones that would otherwise be dull 
and commonplace become weighted with the tragedy and 
comedy of life ; (2) the appreciation of the beautiful ; 
(3) devotion to duty ; (4) friendship ; (5) domestic affec- 
tion ; (6) sympathy and loyalty. And it is the realiza- 
tion of these things which education should set before 
itself as the ultimate aim. 



86 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

Comparative Value of the Various Ultimate Goods of 
Life. — To attempt to ascertain the comparative value of 
these various elements would be for the most part an idle 
and profitless discussion. The truth, even if it were attain- 
able, and it probably is not, would be of questionable value 
for education. But there are two questions in this connec- 
tion upon which the philosophy of education must decide : 
Is the development of the intellect, of the power to ap- 
prehend the relations between things, of more importance 
than the development of character ? Is the dogma of art 
for art's sake true — ^may true art prosecute its aim with- 
out regard to ethical considerations .? Manifestly, if these 
two questions are answered in the affirmative the primary 
aim of the teacher must be the intellectual and aesthetic 
development of the pupil, making the formation of char- 
acter a matter of secondary importance. 

It is more than doubtful whether arguments can exert 
any influence on the decision which any individual may 
make as to which of these — intellectual, aesthetic, or 
moral development — shall be the .primary aim of his own 
life. A man who through education or heredity is willing 
to do violence to his sense of duty for the sake of intel- 
lectual or aesthetic culture is joined to his idols ; there is 
nothing to be done but to let him alone. But if he admits 
that all these things have an intrinsic value, if he only 
differs with you as to which should have the preference in 
case of a conflict, then he can be forced to admit that all 
the rest of the world should be regulated by principles the 
value of which, in his own case, he refuses to acknowledge.- 
For if intellectual and aesthetic culture, loyalty to duty, 
sympathy, friendship, and domestic affection are good 
things, then the more of them the better : every addition 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION. 87 

to them is an increase of the spiritual wealth of the world. 
But the only one of these principles whose one aim is the 
increase of spiritual wealth is loyalty to duty. Make 
intellectual culture, or aesthetic culture, or friendship, or 
sympathy, or domestic affection the element of surpassing 
worth, and the enlargement of the goods of life, increasing 
the number of people who possess them, becomes a matter 
of secondary and incidental importance. You want your 
friends and the members of your family to have the things 
which seem good to you because of their personal relation 
to you ; for the cultivation of your own intellectual and 
aesthetic nature requires the contact of your mind with 
other cultivated minds. But loyalty to duty makes you 
regard the goods of other people as of equal importance 
with your own, or, rather, modifying the fine saying of 
Aristotle, makes you see that the attainment of your own 
highest good depends upon your doing what you can to 
help others to attain theirs. Evidently, then, the man 
who refuses to admit that he is bound to sacrifice an iota 
of his intellectual or aesthetic life for the sake of other 
men is logically bound to concede that every one else 
should. He refuses to admit it in his own case because 
the realization of the goods of life by other men is as 
nothing to his consciousness when it comes into competi- 
tion with the things which seem to him to be of supreme 
worth ; he is bound to concede it in the case of the rest 
of the world because, when his own personality is not in 
question, the good of one abstract man, so to speak, must 
appear equal to that of another, and the greater the 
number of men who realize the condition that gives life 
intrinsic value the greater the wealth of the world. 

The ultimate aim of education, then, should be to 



88 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

promote the intellectual and aesthetic culture, enlarge the 
sympathies, strengthen and purify the friendships and 
domestic affections of those who are being educated, and 
to make devotion to duty the governing principle of their 
lives. 

A Standard for Judging Institutions. — This gives us a 
standard by which not merely schools but all institutions 
whatsoever may be judged. The one question the answer to 
which determines the right of an institution to be is : Does 
it help men think more clearly, feel more deeply, act more 
wisely .-' This is our only criterion for determining the 
value of civilization. If civilization is better than barba- 
rism, the primary reason is not that it increases the amount 
of wealth per capita. It is that civilization has a greater 
tendency to make men clear-headed, appreciative of beauty, 
responsive to the calls of duty and affection. 

The world has always been prone to forget the end in 
the means. It has no difficulty in realizing that in any 
kind of manufacture it is the product which is the essen- 
tial thing. We would not permit an architect to distract 
our attention from an ill-planned house by insisting that his 
drawings were beautiful. But in the midst of the won- 
derful increase in the tools of civilization, we find it hard 
to bear in mind that the important thing is the product to 
which all these things must minister if they are to have 
any value, and that product is man. We are certainly 
making marvellous improvements in various arts ; are we 
making corresponding improvements in the art of living ? 

Common opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, it is 
precisely this that the school must undertake to do if it is 
to discharge its obligations to society. Its task is to 



THE TRUE END OF EDUCATION, 89 

make its pupils masters of the art of living. In order 
to perform it, the school must rid its pupils of what 
Plato called the lie in the soul, self-deception, as to the 
ultimate goods of life. It must make them realize that 
not in their wealth, not in their social position, not in their 
reputation, but in themselves is to be found that which 
makes life a success or a failure. 

It is not of course intended that these things are to be 
taught to little children, or to students of any age as 
matter to be memorized. They are to be taught, not as 
concepts, but as ideals ; to be taught in such a way that 
they may become the underlying forces of life. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What are some of the fundamental conceptions of science? 

2. What do you understand by proof? 

3. Why cannot conclusions as to the end of education be proved? 

4. State and illustrate what Professor Ormond means by "lower 
immediacy," " mediacy," and "higher immediacy." 

5. What did Aristotle mean by theorizing activity? 

6. Mention the other ultimate goods which education should seek 
to realize. 

7. Which of the ultimate goods of life must take precedence of the 
rest, and why ? 

8. Shovv that our conclusions furnish a standard by which institu- 
tions may be judged. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Show that in the very nature of the case proof presupposes 
something which is known without proof. 

2. What do you understand by the phrase, " end of education " ? 

3. Show that the end of education must be incapable of proof. 

4. Can you mention any changes that would have taken place in 
the schools of the Middle Ages if the end of education had been 
clearly understood? 



90 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

5. Do you think that American public opinion correctly appre- 
hends the true object of education ? 

6. If the people of your town should come to believe what the 
text teaches as to the purpose of education what changes would they 
require in your school? 

7. Do the conclusions of the text enable you to determine in what 
national e;reatness consists? 



CHAPTER VII. 

EDUCATION AS PREPARATION FOR RATIONAL LIVING. 

Education and Public Opinion. — At this point the edu- 
cational statesman takes up the argument. All this, he 
says, would be very well in the garden of Eden, in a world 
where men were like the lilies of the field. But in our 
workaday world men have to earn their living by the 
sweat of their brows, and the public insists that their 
education shall prepare them for it. And though people 
in general may be mistaken as to what genuine advance- 
ment in life means, we must take their opinions into 
account, .else we shall find that the schools we would 
establish will lack money for their support, and those we 
open will be without pupils. 

Blunder of the Old Greeks. — The educational philoso- 
pher finds no difficulty here. Insisting so strenuously on 
the ultimate end of education, he must not lose sight of 
the mysterious union of mind and body, and the conse- 
quent necessity of training with that in view. The fun- 
damental blunder of the old Greek thinkers was their 
tendency to treat education as though we had no bodily 
necessities to provide for. As the modern business man 
inclines to regard education as purely a means of making 
better provision for the body — clothing it with finer 
garments, feeding it with richer food, sheltering it with 
more beautiful houses — so the old Greek was v^ont to 

91 



g2 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

look upon education as though it had to deal with de- 
tached souls. And while the former's opinion is the more 
fundamentally false, a real philosophy of education must 
admit that both views are one-sided. 

This statement would be true if, in providing for one's 
needs, one had to consider himself alone. But it is in 
earning one's living that one finds his best opportunity 
to render effective service to society. 

A constantly increasing number of men consider the 
earning a Hving as incidental to the service they are render- 
ing society. Their bodies must be provided for, of course, 
but so must their souls. The higher, intellectual life, how- 
ever, attains its supreme worth only as it is employed in 
rendering useful service to society. The ultimate reason, 
then, for work is that by means of it we find our best op- 
portunity to give expression to our noblest impulses. The 
education, therefore, that prepares us to do it in this spirit, 
and to do it well, ministers to our best self. 

We are bound all the more rigorously to take this view 
since from another standpoint it is evident that these bodies 
of ours are not such mistakes after all, and the necessity of 
making provision for them not the curse that it seemed. 
To Greeks like Plato and Aristotle they seemed a sort of 
blunder, and the work of providing for them so essentially 
degrading as of necessity to cut off those engaged in it from 
participating in the duties and privileges of citizenship. But 
we have learned that doing whatever we have to do honestly 
and well brings peace, " as much as seems possible to the 
nature of man ; that, ascending from lowest to highest, 
industry wisely followed brings happiness. Ask the laborer 
in the field, at the forge, or in the mine ; ask the patient 
delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed fiery-hearted 



PREPARATION FOR RATIONAL LIVING. 93 

worker in bronze and in marble, and with the colors of light ; 
and none of these who are true workmen will ever tell you 
that they have found the law of life an unkind one — that 
in the sweat of their face they should eat bread till they 
return to the ground." ^ 

Respect, then, for any kind of useful work, preparation 
to do it well, is a part of the equipment of hfe even from 
the standpoint of the philosopher. In the solution of the 
problems connected with our work our theorizing activity 
finds large scope for exercise, and in the conscientious 
performance of it our loyalty to duty finds its most be- 
neficent expression, and our Hves the highest attainable 
peace. 

Mr. Spencer's Theory. — All the other elements of Mr. 
Spencer's conception of complete living become clear and 
definite in the light of the ultimate aim of education. To 
live completely, he says, we must know how to treat the 
body. Why ? Because health is an end in itself .? No, 
but because we are hampered in our efforts to attain the 
great ends of life without it. Without health we can neither 
think, nor appreciate beauty, nor feel affection for our friends 
and family, nor work beneficently for our fellows as we 
otherwise might. 

From this point of view, also, we are able to see the true 
meaning of the phrase, "in what way to treat the mind." 
We treat the mind most wisely when we help it most effec- 
tively to ascend in "dignity of being." Now we know to 
what end we should train our children : to the end that 
they shall so realize that the best thing in life is mental 
wealth as to strive supremely to attain it. 

1 Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, p. 155. 



94 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

Dr. Dewey's Theory. — Now also we are able to see the 
truth and limitations of Dr. Dewey's theory. We know 
now that the true interests of society consist in the increase 
of precisely this "spiritual wealth," ^ and we understand 
that we must learn how to contribute to it, and do our 
utmost to promote it, because in this way only can we at- 
tain to a realization of our best self. Aristotle was wiser 
than Dr. Dewey. The Greek philosopher saw that no 
deeper reason for any course of activity could possibly be 
assigned than that through it only could one's true self find 
expression. Dr. Dewey writes as though the promotion of 
the interests of society were an end in itself ; as though 
the interests of society could be made intelligible until one 
understands the interests of individuals, as though the 
interests of society could be of ultimate significance until 
one has found the ultimate value in the life of the individual. 

From this standpoint, also, we are able to see the truth 
and error in the contention of the educational Philistine. 
"Give us the three R's," he says ; "they are the essential 
things." They certainly are essential. The first error of 
the Philistine consists in supposing that nothing else 
counts ; the second, in the assumption that the life to 
which they minister is the life of the body. We want the 
three R's for the sake of the mind, and we want every- 
thing else that can contribute to its well-being. The 
pagan Plato saw that religion, art, science, literature, gov- 
ernment, life itself may be utilized in the development of 
the growing mind. 

The Constituents of Rational Living: Knowledge. — It 

will, perhaps, serve td give greater definiteness to our con- 

1 The phrase is George Eliot's. 



PREPARATION FOR RATIONAL LIVING. 95 

ception if we note the constituents of the complete or 
rational life for which education is to prepare us. The 
first one, manifestly, is knowledge. All the goods of the 
world, whether ultimate or subordinate, are attainable only 
by mediate processes. Health, for example, is a good; but 
in order to regain it, if we have lost it, we must do and 
leave undone a great many things. What shall we do ? 
what shall we avoid ,'' Evidently without some knowledge 
of the laws of health we are absolutely in the dark. And 
so it is with everything else that we would accomplish. 
Whether we would teach school, or build a house, or man- 
age a farm, or conduct a bank, or carry on a government, 
without knowledge we can do nothing. 

Intellectual Power. — But if we have knowledge and 
knowledge only, we are almost helpless. We can acquire 
a knowledge of the laws of health from books and lectures. 
But how much and what to eat, how much exercise and 
how much sleep we require, no one can tell us. We learn 
those things through reflection upon the laws of health 
and through our own experience. We can learn from 
teachers and books the laws of the mind. But laws of the 
mind will not apply themselves. No amount of knowledge 
of them will tell us what we shall teach this particular 
child at this particular time, or how we shall discipline him 
when he goes astray. We can learn, also, from books and 
lectures the facts of history and some of the facts that un- 
derlie them. But this knowledge alone will not enable any 
one to say with certainty whether it was wise for the 
United States to acquire the Philippine Islands. One's 
opinion on that subject must be the result of reflection. 
In a word, intelligent, rational living requires not only 



^6 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

knowledge, but reflection, and that of a kind which is only 
possible to a well-trained mind. 

A Cultivated Emotional Nature. — Once more : it is not 
enough to have the knowledge bearing upon any depart- 
ment of activity, and to be able to apply the laws that 
underlie it to particular cases. As the late Thomas Da- 
vidson put it : " It is perfectly obvious as soon as it is 
pointed out, that all criminal life is due to a false distribu- 
tion of affection, which again is often, though by no means 
always, due to a want of intellectual cultivation. He that 
attributes to anything a value greater or less than it really 
possesses in the order of things has already placed himself 
in a false relation to it, and will certainly, when he comes 
to act with reference to it, act criminally." We shall 
realize at once what Davidson meant if we recall the 
methods employed by many men to get rich. Why do 
they do it ? Because they care too much for wealth ; be- 
cause they put upon it a valuation far in excess of what it 
really possesses. 

An Effective Will. — But a man may have knowledge, a 
disciplined intellect, properly trained emotions, and still 
not act intelligently. Take the case of Coleridge. He 
certainly lacked neither knowledge nor the power to apply 
it, and there is no evidence to show that he did not esti- 
mate the goods of life at their proper worth. But the 
weakness of his wi'l prevented him from holding the 
values of things steadily before his mind and governing 
his action accordingly. These four, then, knowledge, dis- 
cipline, a true estimate of the values of things, an effective 
will, are the constituents of rational living. He who ap- 



PREPARATION FOR RATIONAL LIVING. 



97 



prehends the great ends of life, who knows the facts in 
those departments of knowledge in which he is obliged to 
act in order to attain those ends, and the principles that 
underlie them ; who has the ability to apply those princi- 
ples to the various cases that present themselves in the 
course of his daily life ; whose emotional nature is so 
trained that his love for things is in proportion to their 
proper worth, and whose will impels him to control his ac- 
tions accordingly- — he alone is the educated man, for he 
alone is capable of living rationally. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What blunder did the old Greeks make ? 

2. In what sense may the earning of a livelihood be regarded as 
incidental to the service of society ? 

3. What is the meaning of the quotation from Ruskin ? 

4. Show that the various elements of Mr. Spencer's conception of 
complete living become clear in the light of our conclusions. 

5. State and illustrate the various constituents of rational living. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Do you know any men who render important services to society 
without compensation .? 

2. What statement made in the text do they illustrate? 

3. Can you cite examples from your own observation which prove 
the truth of Ruskin's opinion ? 

4. Mr. Spencer writes as though the only knowledge needed to 
train the mind wisely is the knowledge of psychology ; is he right? 

5. How does it happen that so many parents and teachers who 
are ignorant of psychology have considerable success in training 
children ? 

6. The mind of every teacher, according to the classifications of 
psychology, consists of intellect, sensibility, and will; which of these 
have to do with the education of the pupil in Mr. Spencer's opinion? 

7. In what way is a child affected by knowing what his father likes 
and dislikes? 

8. How do you account for this? 

9. Apply your conclusions to Mr. Spencer's theory of education. . 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE END OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

•' Life is so strange," says an old song; and few things 
about it are stranger than the conflict between the demands 
of the intellect and the exigencies of practical life. The 
theoretically desirable is so rarely the practically possible ! 
Theoretically it would seem that we ought to spend our 
lives in reflection, the contemplation of beauty, and so on ; 
practically we have to measure calico, wash dishes, and hoe 
corn. Theoretically it would appear that every one ought 
to have money and capacity enough to get a thorough uni- 
versity education ; as a matter of fact from ninety to 
ninety-five per cent of our children never get beyond the 
elementary school, and the remarkable thing is that the 
capacity and the. pecuniary circumstances of many of them 
probably make it undesirable for them to go farther. 

Material and Intellectual Needs. — This fact must exer- 
cise a controlling influence in determining the purpose of 
elementary education. Mr. Booker T. Washington wisely 
insists that the crying need of his race is industrial educa- 
tion, an education that will improve the material condition 
of the negro. If a conflict could arise between the mate- 
rial and the spiritual needs of our elementary pupils, if it 
were necessary for us to choose between a sacrifice of the 
training that looks toward the earning of a living and that 
which lays emphasis on the cultivation of the mind, it 

98 



THE END OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



99 



would be necessary for us to give up the latter, paradoxical 
as it may seem. The paradox, however, is only in seem- 
ing. The great soul of a Socrates may devote itself to the 
supreme ends of life unhindered by poor food, shabby 
clothing, and bare feet. But a reasonable supply of the 
material needs of life is indispensable in the case of the 
average man if he is to give any considerable attention to 
things spiritual. The apparent sacrifice, in the supposed 
case of the needs of the mind, would be for the sake of 
mind. It would be made in order that a foundation might 
be laid for the higher, nobler life. 

In fact, however, there is no such conflict. The ele- 
mentary school certainly renders material assistance in the 
earning of a livelihood. It enables those who have attended 
it to read, and thereby inform themselves in relation to 
matters of pecuniary interest to them. It teaches them 
writing and arithmetic. It empowers them to reason more 
logically and therefore so to modify tradition and custom as 
to bring their lives more and more into harmony with the 
truth of things. 

Moral Causes of Poverty. — It is not in these ways, how- 
ever, that the elementary school finds its best opportunity 
to help its pupils in a pecuniary way. The poorest people 
are not poor because of a lack of knowledge of the three 
R's. They are poor because they are lacking in self-respect, 
thrift, perseverance, and reliability. Their poverty is due 
to moral rather than to intellectual causes. The education 
that seeks to raise men in a purely material way must lay 
great emphasis on moral questions. It must develop the 
power to forego the pleasures of to-day for the sake of the 
good of to-morrow. Frugality, perseverance, honesty, relia- 

LcfC. 



lOO A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

bility, consideration for others, uprightness, are the qualities 
that count for most in the earning of a liveHhood. The 
education that neglects to emphasize them for the sake of 
a purely intellectual training, because of the supposed 
necessity of the latter to the earning of a livelihood, is a 
cruel mistake, an almost criminal blunder. An employee 
who can be trusted is rarely without a position even though 
he is not above the average of his fellows in ability. But 
the bright, clever man whom you are afraid to leave alone, 
who is a tremendous worker when you are looking at him 
— who will employ him except as a last resort? 

Intellectual and Moral Training Compatible. — It is, 

however, entirely erroneous to suppose that there is any 
incompatibility between the intellectual training that bears 
on the earning of a livelihood and the more important 
moral training. There is no reason why, in teaching a boy 
to read, we should not make use of such selections as he 
needs in the interests of his moral nature. We may put 
into the hands of the beginner such thrilling stories as, 
" This is a rat ; this is a cat : the cat will catch the rat." 
But we may also put into his hands stories that he will 
care to read for their own sakes, stories that he should 
read if he had no body to provide for. We may indeed 
fill our arithmetics with problems having relation to 
nothing but money, as though the only use to be made of 
a knowledge of number is to make calculations about 
money. But we may also fill them with problems which 
tend to make more vivid in the mind of the child those 
truths upon which the health and soundness of his mental 
life depend. As we shall see in detail hereafter, it is 
precisely the latter method that tends most strongly to 



THE END OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. lOI 

develop that desire for accuracy which is so essential for 
practical purposes in arithmetical calculations. Give a 
boy a problem dealing with purely imaginary conditions, 
and it does not seem to him to matter whether he gets the 
correct result or not, provided he uses the right principle ; 
give him a problem dealing with practical affairs, and he 
will have a desire to reach the correct conclusion, because 
it will represent not a hypothetical but an actual case. 

No Conflict Between the Needs of the Citizen and of the 
Man. — Nor is there any conflict between the needs of the 
boy as a citizen and his needs as a human being. The 
same knowledge of his country's history which the Ameri- 
can finds requisite as a citizen he also requires as a human 
being. We know what he must have as a man : it is that 
which will give him right ideals of life, that which will 
make him charitable and sympathetic, that which will en- 
able him to see the tragedy and the comedy that lurk be- 
hind the deeds of commonplace men. These are precisely 
the things he must have as an American. We hear a 
good deal nowadays in depreciation of patriotism. Nov- 
elists like Hall Caine and moralists like Tolstoi' vie with 
each other in teaching that patriotism is an obsolete virtue 
— if indeed it ever was a virtue — whose place ought to be 
taken by philanthropy. They might argue with just as 
much reason that philanthropy should take the place of 
parental affection. There are indeed fathers who commit 
crimes for the sake of their children, as there are citizens 
who say, " My country, may she be right ; but right or 
wrong, my country." But as the best father is he who 
realizes that he is kindest to his children when he is most 
upright, so the truest patriot is he who loves his country so 



I02 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

devotedly as to feel a stain upon its honor as a personal 
matter. When John Quincy Adams said, No true-hearted 
American can read the account of our dealings with 
Mexico without blushing with shame for his country, he 
spoke not only as a philanthropist, but as a patriot. If, 
then, we may conclude that there is no conflict in the 
elementary school between the demands of a liberal educa- 
tion and those of an education for the sake of the body, 
that the best education is, as far as it goes, a liberal educa- 
tion, we may inquire what elements of a liberal education 
the elementary school ought to give. 

A Liberal Education and the Elementary School. — A 

liberal education, as we should define it, is one that keeps 
in constant view those ends about which so much has 
already been said — thought, the appreciation of beauty, 
loyalty to duty, affection, sympathy, etc. Can the liberal 
education of the elementary school intelligently have all 
these things in view ? As to all of them except the first 
there can be no possible question. That a very young 
child can be made to see beauty, that he can be touched 
with a sense of duty, that he can be made to feel the joys 
of sympathy and affection, is beyond doubt. And there is 
just as little doubt as to the first. Aristotle indeed 
declared that children, like slaves, are incapable of the 
exercise of reason. Of the reasonings of the full-grown 
philosopher of course they are. But of such an exercise 
of reason as leads to wonder they certainly are not. The 
stupendous acquisitions of the child during the first three 
years of his life — acquisitions which surpass in amount, so 
some assert, those that are made in any three subsequent 
years — are due to the extraordinary activity of his mind. 



THE END OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



103 



It would be hard to draw the line between that feeling of 
wonder that fills the mind of the child as he apprehends 
day by day some new phase of the mystery of the world, 
and that sense of awe that filled the mind of Kant as he 
contemplated the starry heavens. If the full-blown flower 
has the supreme fragrance and sweetness which Aristotle 
attributed to it, surely the young plant just putting forth 
its tender leaves deserves to be treated with the utmost 
care. 

We may then sum up our conclusions as follows : 
Elementary education, in all its phases, should have con- 
stantly in view those things that make life worth living. 
But it should seek to attain them by teaching the pupil 
those arts and having him study those subjects which he 
will need as a bread-earner and a citizen. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. Why does Booker Washington advocate industrial education 
for the negro ? 

2. Why is poverty often due to moral causes ? 

3. Show that the intellectual training which bears on the earning 
of a livelihood is compatible with moral training. 

4. Show that there is no conflict between the needs of the citizen 
and the man. 

5. Reply to Hall Caine's argument against patriotism. 

6. What is a liberal education ? 

7. In what sense may the elementary school give a liberal educa- 
tion? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Because poverty is due to moral causes, are we justified in 
teaching that a dishonest man cannot get rich? 

2. In what sense is it true that honesty is the best policy ? 

3. Who IS the true patriot, the man who always defends his coun- 



I04 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

try, or the man who condemns her under circumstances which would 
lead him to condemn another country? 

4. What is the difference between the education which the ele- 
mentary school ought to give, and that which the high school and 
college should seek to impart? 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: GENERAL. 

Begin with the Child. — It has come to be an axiom in 
pedagogy that we must begin with the child. The pro- 
fessor of physics who introduced his course of lectures by 
saying, " A rearrangement of the courses of study deprived 
you of the usual instruction in elementary physics ; that 
is your misfortune, and not my fault," ^ and at once began 
his lectures on advanced physics, may have known his 
subject, but he was ignorant of pedagogy. The faintest 
glimmer of that science would have shown him that the 
rearrangement of the course of study had of necessity 
rearranged his work, that the attempt to lecture on ad- 
vanced physics to students who are not familiar with its 
elementary concepts would only result in confusion. 

We must begin with the pupil not only in that we must 
adapt our instruction to his intellectual conditions, but in 
that we must take his interests into account. As has already 
been stated, this book is based on the assumption that 
neither the duties of the boy in school nor of the man in the 
world can always be as interesting as any other occupation. 
But it does not therefore follow that the teacher shall deliber- 
ately seek to create situations in which his pupils must 
exert their will-power. On the contrary, at every stage of 
a child's development his work should be brought into the 
closest possible relation with his life and interests, in order 

1 Schaefer's Thinking, p. 52. 
105 



I06 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

that it may have for him the utmost possible amount of 
attractiveness. The interests that make for education are 
always obliged to compete with those that tend to array 
the individual against society as well as his own best self. 
Since the anarchical interests are likely to prevail unless 
the will throws its weight into the lighter scale, the teacher 
is under supreme obligation to make those that tend to 
promote the child's good as strong as possible. 

The Young Child and the Educated Man While this 

principle should be recognized by teachers of every grade 
from the university professor down, it applies with peculiar 
force to the elementary teacher. The mature student can 
see the reason for all that is demanded of him, and he 
ought to be able to pursue the course which reason points 
out, even though appetite and inclination lead the other 
way. But the young child has neither the power to see 
nor the will to do what his own best self requires. Abso- 
lutely helpless in the beginning, with no guide but blind 
instincts, and these not sufficiently developed to insure 
even his physical self-preservation, he should be so trained 
that when the education of the school is finished the work 
of self-education may go on. Life itself is a school, and 
the ideal of education in the narrower sense is that parent 
first and later parent and teacher may so do their work 
that when the student passes from their control he may 
become his own teacher, may intelligently direct his own 
life. Evidently the motives which should be all-powerful 
in the end — those growing out of purely rational consid- 
erations — are entirely wanting in the beginning ; evidently, 
also, the motives which are alone possible in the begin- 
ning — those that in some form make an appeal to the 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: GENERAL. 107 

child's immediate interest — should be entirely in abeyance 
at the end. The college or university student should not 
do things merely because they may have an immediate 
interest for him. As the carpenter does not put a window 
here or a bracket there to suit his fancy, as he is governed 
in everything that he does by the plan of the house, so the 
advanced student, having formed an ideal of life, should do 
this or refrain from that, not because of its immediate 
interest, but because of its bearing on his life-plan. 

The ideal education is that which, keeping this goal con- 
stantly in mind, demands of the child at every stage of his 
development those requirements that tend to lead most 
directly and certainly to it. Exactly what these require- 
ments should be, educational science will nev^er be able to 
say. Children are not like geometrical figures. When 
you know the properties of one right-angled triangle you 
know the properties of all of them. But when you have 
found out how to treat one child of seven you do not 
know how to treat another of the same age, because the 
second may be unlike the first in very important particu- 
lars. All that educational science can do is to lay down 
certain general principles, leaving their application to the 
tact of the trained teacher, guided indeed by his knowledge 
of children in general. 

The Child Guided by Interest — One principle that 
should govern the mother in the treatment of her very 
young child is clear : she should expect nothing from his 
reason. So far as she aims to control his conduct she 
must make some sort of appeal to his immediate interests. 
Dr. Hinsdale said that only two things might be said with 
certainty of the young child : " He is sure to have many 



I08 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

interests in the course of the day, and none of them will 
continue long." ^ One thing more may be said of him : 
so far as he is left to himself he will do nothing except 
what interests him. But long before he is old enough to 
go to school he has learned that some of his interests 
ought not to have play. He hkes to dabble in the water : 
he has learned that that may result in a spanking and a 
cold. He likes to shout and make a big noise : he has 
learned that his boisterousness must be held in check 
when his baby brother is asleep. 

Habits of Rational Conduct. — The wise mother will 
not expect her child to do what is reasonable from a sense 
of duty. Her task is to see that it is done, and done, too, 
under the influence of the least degree of compulsion. 
Making her child acquainted so far as possible with the 
reason for her requirements, she nevertheless knows that 
other motives — the desire to please her, fear of punish- 
ment, etc. — will for the most part control his conduct. 
She knows that the impulse to do what is seen to be 
reasonable is too feeble to direct his actions. But pre- 
cisely because she realizes the incomparable worth and 
significance of this motive, because she knows that every- 
thing depends on so nuturing it and strengthening it 
that it may grow and grow until it becomes the control- 
ling force in the life of her child, she will develop in him 
habits of right conduct, and as far as possible make him 
see their reasonableness. The nearer the conduct of the 
child, for whatever reason, conforms to what the child 
sees to be reasonable, the more natural it is for him to 
dwell on the fact that he is acting rationally, and the more 
1 Hinsdale's Art of Study, p. 141. 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: GENERAL. 109 

the desire so to act tends to gain in power. But it is evi- 
dent that a habit of right conduct formed through fear of 
punishment is less likely to leave the mind free to dwell 
on the intrinsic reasonableness of the conduct than one 
formed through affection for the mother. The impulse to 
act rationally and the desire to please those we love are 
higher than the wish to avoid punishment. The child 
whose conduct is governed through affection for parent or 
teacher is strengthening at the same time his tendency to 
do what seems to him reasonable ; the child, on the other 
hand, who does what is right in order to avoid punishment 
is in great danger of doing what is wrong as soon as he can 
do so with impunity. It follows that conduct regulated 
only by fear of punishment is rarely stimulated by the im- 
pulse to do what is reasonable just because it is reasonable. 
So far the principle that should control the mother has 
been dwelt upon. This has been done for two reasons : 
(i) the best way to realize the proper method of dealing with 
the child at school is to contrast the influences that abso- 
lutely determine his conduct at the beginning of his educa- 
tion with those by which he should be guided in the end ; 
and (2) the same principle that ought to control the 
mother in the treatment of her child at home ought to 
govern the teacher in her treatment of the child at school. 
If the child, at first governed by blind, unconscious impulse, 
and later by some form of immediate interest, is to be 
developed into a being who will be governed in what he 
does by purely rational considerations, then the problem 
for teacher and parent is : How to make such an appeal to 
the child's immediate interests as will take him most surely 
to the goal in which reason, not impulse and inclination, 
will be the ruling principle of his life. And while it has 



no A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

been implied all along that no influence can be exerted 
upon the child that does not make some sort of appeal to 
his immediate interests, the intention has been to indicate 
with equal clearness that these immediate interests cannot 
always be the sort that grow out of the thing we wish him 
to do. A child may make his own multiplication table 
because he likes to do it. In that case his conduct grows 
out of an immediate interest in his work. But when he 
learns the table by heart, he does it because the teacher 
requires it. Here again he acts from an immediate inter- 
est, but not from one growing out of what he does. He 
wishes, it may be, to please the teacher, or to get a good 
mark, or to avoid punishment. Some form of immediate 
interest he must have. But no amount of pedagogical 
skill can bring it to pass that this interest shall so grow out 
of the work to be done that if the child were capable of 
analyzing his motives, he would say he did it because he 
liked it. Emphasis is laid upon this point because in the 
opinion of the author it should be a determining factor in 
all the teacher's work. Important as it is that the work 
of the school should be made as interesting as possible, 
something else is even more important : that the child and 
the man should do their proper work whether it be the 
most interesting thing or not. 

The Educational Centre of Gravity. — Returning now to 
the point made at the beginning of the chapter, we repeat 
that, so far as possible, the work of the school should be 
adapted to the child's interests. How adapted ? In the 
sense that he shall be set doing things which he likes to 
do, things the doing of which takes him toward the goal of 
education. We must make the child himself, his tastes, 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: GENERAL. m 

his interests, the centre of gravity.^ Governed as we all 
are to a great extent by tradition, we find it hard to cut 
loose from the idea that the thing to do when a child en- 
ters school is to put a book into his hands. This was the 
idea of the Renaissance, the period which identified educa- 
tion with learning, and which therefore paid little heed to 
the child because he had so little capacity to learn the 
things that the Renaissance teacher thought important. 
Under the influence of that mode of thought we have been 
sending the child's body to school, leaving his mind to look 
out for itself.- And many who have come to see that, 
since it is the child's mind we must deal with, we must 
take its impulses into account, are still so dominated by 
Renaissance theories that they do not realize that the child 
has any impulses of which the school should take note 
except those of a purely intellectual character. As the 
Renaissance teacher neglected every power of the mind 
except memory, so these teachers neglect all his powers 
and tendencies except memory and curiosity. The inces- 
santly active child, the talkative child, the child pulling 
things to pieces and putting them together again, has been 
ignored, suppressed, taken no account of. Observe any 
child. Does he sit on your knee and ask you questions by 
the hour ? Is he curiosity personified .-• That is what he 
must be if the methods that prevail in many primary 
schools are right. But though he has curiosity, that is 
not his only trait ; in normal cases it is not his predomi- 
nant trait. If we are to make him the centre around 
which the work of the school revolves, we must get rid 
of the Renaissance fallacy and, with the simple desire to 
find out the truth, inquire how we can invest the child's 
^ The figure is Dr. Dewey's. 2 cf_ d^. Dewey's School and Society. 



112 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

capital/ his interests, his impulses, so that they may bring 
him the largest return. 

As a preliminary to finding an answer to this question 
we must ascertain what these interests are. And it may 
serve to give us a deeper appreciation of the importance of 
our question to remember that there was a time when the 
purely intellectual interests which alone we are inclined to 
take account of were almost ignored. The men of the 
world of the first half of the Middle Ages thought chiefly 
of action and of the impulses that lead to it. Perhaps 
they were not entirely wrong. Let us then marshal the 
child's interests before us so that we may see how they 
can be turned to account in his education. 

Curiosity. — It is unnecessary to do more than mention 
the child's intellectual interests, his curiosity, his impulse 
towards better cognition, as Professor James terms it. As 
has already been said, this is the chief impulse to which 
the work of most so-called good primary schools make 
direct appeal. 

The Constructive Impulse. — Closely connected with 
this is the child's constructive impulse. A little girl of 
seven, after burying herself for hours in a child's history 
of the United States, put her book down and asked for a 
blanket. She had been reading about Indians and she 
wanted to give objective expression to some of the ideas 
she had acquired. She got a feather and stuck it in her 
hat, and asked her father to help her build a wigwam. In 
the early years of a child's life this impulse plays a vitally 
important part. As Professor James says, " Up to the 

1 This phrase is Dr. Dewey's. 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: GENERAL. 



113 



eighth or ninth year the child does hardly anything else 
than handle objects, explore things with his hands, doing 
and undoing, setting up and knocking down, putting 
together and pulling apart ; for, from the psychological 
point of view, construction and destruction are two names 
for the same manual activity." ^ 

The gratification of the constructive impulse forms a 
large part of the play of children. Indeed, if we define 
play as activity in which the child engages because he 
likes it, we may say that whatever children do through the 
constructive impulse is play. " They build their sand 
castles, they pretend to keep shop, to entertain visitors, 
and so forth, for the sake of the enjoyment they find in 
these activities."^ 

The Art Impulse. — Such activities become modified at 
a very early period in the life of the child by the 
art impulse — another of the common characteristics of 
children. A child of three will sometimes throw down his 
toys and listen to the reading of an abstract essay. 
Because he understands it .'' Certainly not ; it is because 
the cadence of the sentences pleases his sesthetic sense. 
Miss Shinn observed that her niece in her twenty-eighth 
month showed a special fondness for daffodils. As soon 
as the passive appreciation of beauty becomes a part of the 
child's hfe, it begins to modify the activity of the con- 
structive impulse. The child endeavors to make his crea- 
tions conform to his ideas of beauty. 

The Social Impulse. — In gratifying his constructive 
tendency the child acts for the sake of acting. You who 

1 James, Talks to Teachers, p. 58. 2 Sully, Studies in Childhood, p. 34. 



114 



A BROADER KLEMK^■1AK^ 11)L< ATION. 



observe what he is doing can tell what is passing through 
his mind. But it is not for your sake that he is acting. 
He does what he does because he likes to do it. The 
activities due to the social impulse, on the other hand, are 
directly stimulated by the presence of other people. 
Observe any child in a home where the maxim that 
children should be seen, not heard, is, as it ought to be, 
disregarded. When he reads a story, he wants to tell it 
to his mother ; when he comes in from a walk, he is eager 
to tell her all that he has seen that interests him. When 
a story is told in his presence, he insists on correcting 
every inaccurate statement. 

Imitation. — Half-way between the constructive impulse 
and the social is the disposition to imitate. Indeed the con- 
structive impulse and the imitative, as far as the latter acts 
unconsciously, are bottomed on the same law — that every 
idea tends to act itself out. The child who wished to 
make a wigwam after reading about Indians did so because 
the ideas were in her mind, and the child who imitates the 
gestures of her mother does so for the same reason. 

But when the imitative impulse becomes conscious, 
when the child tries to reproduce the action of another 
because he wishes to be like the other, then the imitative 
tendency becomes allied to the social. It is the social 
impulse turned other end foremost. As the child's social 
nature leads him to influence the minds of others by tell- 
ing them what he knows, so his imitative impulse leads to 
a modification of his own mind through the influence of 
others. It is this that gives it tremendous significance. 
It tends, as Dr. Harris says, to emancipate the child from 
the mere influence of heredity and self-regarding impulses 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: GENERAL. 



115 



and bring him under the influence of those around him. 
It Hes at the foundation of manners, language, the whole 
of the traditional side of life. Imitation, the conserva- 
tion of achievements, and invention, making new dis- 
coveries, are, as Professor James says, " the two legs on 
which the human race historically has walked." 

Invention. — Invention is due to the combination of two 
impulses, one of which is always the intellectual impulse, 
while the other may vary with the subject-matter to which 
the desire to know is related. The latter impulse may 
lead a university student to study municipal government ; 
but unless he is moved by ambition, philanthropy, patriot- 
ism, regard for his family, or some extraneous motive, he 
will not use his knowledge for the betterment of govern- 
ment. It is said that a well-known professor in this coun- 
try is breaking himself down by his excessive study of the 
laws of health. His regard for health is not as intense as 
his desire to know its laws. But even in his case those 
who know him well are doubtless able to see that his knowl- 
edge of hygiene leads to some modification of his actions. 

Emulation. — Closely akin to the imitative impulse is 
the emulative. In one of its forms the only difference 
between them is that of emphasis. "I wish to be like him" 
expresses the conscious imitative impulse. " I wish to be 
not inferior to him " expresses one form of the emulative 
impulse. In the one case attention is concentrated on the 
person one desires to imitate ; in the other, it is self-regard- 
ing. The emotional coloring of the one impulse is admira- 
tion ; of the other, the dislike of inferiority. This dislike 
easily develops into a desire for superiority. 



Il6 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

The self-regarding character of emulation very clearly 
allies it with the combative, aggressive tendency of the 
child, the disposition to compel the people and things that 
surround him to submit to his will. 

The Ethical Impulse. — The child also exhibits at a 
quite early age what we may call the ethical impulse, the 
desire to do right. Precisely what this impulse is, and 
how it originates, are questions that educational science 
does not have to solve. All we need to note here is that 
in the course of his experience the child becomes con- 
scious of a desire to do right ; that this desire is unique, 
incapable of being analyzed into anything else, and that, as 
we have elsewhere tried to show, it ought to be developed 
so that it shall become the ruling principle of his life. 

The instinct of ownership, the craving for approbation, 
the feeling of shyness, the dislike of pain, are so mani- 
festly universal traits that it is hardly necessary to mention 
them. 

So, as has been said, these various impulses upon which 
we have dwelt in the foregoing pages constitute the 
"child's capital." In what way can it be most profitably 
invested for him ? 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is meant by the title of this chapter? 

2. In what did the mistake of the professor who was lecturing on 
physics, consist? 

3. " The interests that make for education must compete with 
those that tend to array the individual against society." Explain. 

4. Why is the primary teacher under peculiar obligations to take 
account of the child's interests ? 

5. Contrast the pupil at the beginning of his education with what 
he should be at the end. 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: GENERAL. ny 

6. What is meant by " habits of rational conduct " ? 

7. In what sense should we make the child the centre of gravity? 

8. Illustrate from your own observation the various impulses of 
the child which are mentioned in the text. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. If the child had the capacity to understand, and were destitute 
of the various impulses mentioned in the text, would education be 
possible? 

2. What does the text mean by "some form of immediate in- 
terest " ? 

3. Show that the teacher cannot, in the nature of the case, exert 
any influence upon the child save as he appeals to some form of 
immediate interest. 

4. What period in history is known as the Renaissance and why? 

5. What is the difference between the Renaissance and the Re- 
vival of Learning? 

6. What idea of education prevailed during the Renaissance? 

7. What writer on education tirst laid stress on the importance of 
basing all our work on the child? 



CHAPTER X. 

THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: IMITATION. 

Professor Baldwin on Imitation. — In the preceding 
chapter we laid great emphasis on the importance of imita- 
tion in the development of the child and of the race. But 
prominent as is the role there assigned it, its part is incon- 
spicuous in comparison with that which seems to be 
claimed for it by some writers. Says Professor Baldwin : 
" The prime and essential method of the child's learning is 
by imitative absorption of the actions, thoughts, experiences 
of other people." "Imitation is the method of his personal 
progress, the essential method of his growth." "Society, 
also," he says, "grows by imitative generalizations of the 
thoughts of others. Imitation is the method of social or- 
ganization." Gabriel Tarde asserts the same doctrine in 
an even less qualified form : "All the actions of men in so- 
ciety, from the satisfying of simple organic needs to the in- 
ventions of science and art, are the outcome of imitation," 

Imitation Defined. — Before discussing this theory, let us 
determine as clearly as we may what Professor Baldwin 
understands by imitation. He says there are three kinds : 
organic or biological, psychological, and plastic. Organic 
imitation he defines as "the tendency of an organism to 
maintain, repeat, reproduce its own stimulation, be it simple 
contractility, muscular contraction, or selected reactions 
which have become habitual. . . . These biological imita- 

ii8 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: IMITATION. 



119 



tions are evidently first in order of development, and 
represent the gains or accommodations of the organism 
made independently of the conscious reception of stimula- 
tions and adaptations to them." In psychological or 
conscious imitation " the presence of a copy to be aimed 
at, the criterion of imitation, is here fulfilled in the form 
of conscious sensations and images." Plastic imitation is 
the " tendency to yield to the impulse or emotion of con- 
formity to social usage." 

Biological Imitation. — With Professor Baldwin's bio- 
logical imitation this book has nothing to do except to 
protest against the use of a psychological term to describe 
biological facts. Outwardly there may be no difference 
between a physical fact accompanied by, and one not ac- 
companied by consciousness. But inwardly the difference 
is as great as that which distinguishes mind from body. 
To ignore this vast dissimilarity by using the same term 
to describe both phenomena can lead only to confusion. 

Psychological Imitation. — His psychological imitation 
corresponds pretty closely to the popular use of the term, 
and will therefore doubtless be clear without illustration or 
discussion. 

Plastic Imitation. — Under plastic imitation he includes 
facts which are the result of imitation and facts which are 
not due to any kind of imitation whatever. He thinks that 
we follow the fashion "in matters of dress, arrangements 
for social functions, such as calling, announcements of en- 
gagements, marriage cards, funeral customs — in short, in 
all those matters in which we ask, * What is the proper 
thing.?'" — because of plastic imitation. Now in nearly 



120 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

every one of these particulars a sufficient explanation of 
our conduct is our unwillingness to appear odd, and that is 
accounted for by our love of approbation. Men do not 
wear shirt-waists in summer, and both sexes submit to a 
thousand discomforts and absurdities in matters of dress 
because of their dread of the opinion of society. The 
petty and, in many respects, ridiculous conventions of our 
artificial social system are submitted to for the same rea- 
son. We want to be "in society" because thereby we 
get, or imagine we do, a certain amount of consideration ; 
and this, and not any imitative propensity, is our reason 
for conforming to the rules which society has laid down 
for those who would win its favor. 

Imitation of Thoughts and Feelings. — We may indeed 
dress in the fashion for another reason : because it seems 
to us beautiful. That acute critic and profound student of 
human nature Walter Bagehot long ago pointed out that 
the imitative side of our nature extends to our emotions ; 
in oth^r words, that we mechanically adopt the likes, dis- 
likes, opinions, tastes, etc., of those with whom we associate. 
Thus it happens that a particular style of architecture, 
writing, painting, or music is almost universally admired in 
one period, and another in another period. What is called 
the contagion of emotion is due to the same cause. As 
every one knows, it requires an exceptionally strong man 
to "keep his head," as we say, in an intensely excited 
crowd. All this is explained by the fact that the imitative 
side of our nature extends to our emotions. 

Is Education Imitation? — Rejecting, then, Professor 
Baldwin's biological imitation and narrowing the scope of 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: IMITATION. I 21 

his plastic imitation, we may define imitation in general as 
the tendency to do, think, or feel what those with whom 
we associate are doing, thinking, and feeling. So con- 
ceiving it, is it true that imitation plays the part in the 
education of the child and the progress of society that 
Professor Baldwin claims for it ? The question is of fun- 
damental importance ; for if the child is indebted to imita- 
tion for his entire development, if society has made all its 
advances from savagery through imitation, the cause of the 
difference between one man and another, between one 
community and another, is not far to seek. Were imita- 
tion the sole factor in development, all that education 
would have to do would be to put good models before the 
growing child. What we call an educated man, a good 
citizen, a useful member of society, would be merely the 
result of patterning after those models. As a matter of 
fact educational science has few more important problems 
to grapple with than that of ascertaining the extent to 
which, and the limitations under which, imitation contrib- 
utes to human development. 

Education Due to all Our Impulses. — The solution of 
the problem can hardly be missed by those who accept the 
conclusions of the preceding chapter. It was there set 
forth that the child is not an imitative creature simply, but 
an emulative, combative, social, intellectual, and construc- 
tive as well as imitative creature, and one hardly knows 
what not besides. The obvious inference from this is that 
the child is determined in his development by the inter- 
lacing and interacting of all his impulses. We have all 
heard of the East Indian tailor who, when he was given a 
pair of trousers as a model, imitated them even to the 



122 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

extent of putting a patch on the new ones. Why is this 
story considered worth the telling .'* Because, from the 
point of view of ordinary common-sense, the conduct of 
the East Indian was abnormal, and its abnormality con- 
sisted precisely in the fact that it was the result of imita- 
tion pure and simple — of imitation not modified by 
intelligence. As in such cases imitation thus unmodified 
is abnormal, so in some others it is abnormal where it 
exerts any influence at all. 

"Why," asks Professor Giddings, "does Maudsley ven- 
ture to say, without offering the slightest proof, that while 
men are as liable as silly sheep to fall into panic when 
they see panic among their fellows, they are not similarly 
liable when they see panic among sheep .-• Obviously be- 
cause facts of this general character are so familiar that 
no one would think of questioning them." In like manner, 
a well-bred, refined boy or girl has little tendency to imi- 
tate the bad manners of rude, uncouth people. Professor 
Royce, who, like Professor Baldwin, is disposed to leave 
the other impulses of the child too much in the back- 
ground in order to give prominence to imitation, says : 
(^" Up to seven or eight years of age, any normal child re- 
mains persistently, although perhaps very selectively, imi- 
tative of deeds, of habits, of games, of customs, and often 
of highly ideal and perhaps quite imaginary models, such 
as are suggested to it by fairy stories and other such 
material." Why selectively imitative .-' Evidently because 
the imitative impulse is modified by other impulses of the 
child's nature. 

Imitation and the Constructive Impulse. — To make 
clear the relation that exists between imitation and the 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: IMITATION. 



123 



other impulses of the child, it may be worth while to dis- 
cuss at some length the influence of imitation upon the 
constructive impulse. It is upon this side of our nature 
that we are dependent for our knowledge of the properties 
of the external world. Many of the qualities of objects 
which seem to be made known through the sense of sight 
are, as Berkeley proved, not really seen at all. When we 
seem directly to see an object as rough, smooth, hard, soft, 
and the like, we really only experience a color which 
directly suggests the quality that we have found to be 
uniformly connected with it. As the significance of lan- 
guage depends on the association of ideas or thoughts 
with certain sensations of sound, so the significance of 
color in making known the qualities of objects depends 
on the association of those qualities with sensations of 
sight. 

Now -the extent to which we handle and experiment 
upon objects is largely a matter of imitation. If one were 
asked why there was so little experimental study of nature 
during the Middle Ages, it would not be a truism to an- 
swer. Because it was not the fashion. What is regarded 
as the thing to do is a matter of common opinion, and 
common opinion, as we shall see later, is the result of imi- 
tation. But imitation does not create tendencies to action. 
It derives its importance from the emphasis which it lays 
upon preexisting tendencies. And this is equivalent to 
saying that were it not for the constructive impulse there 
would be no handling of things, no model of this sort for 
imitation to copy. If, then, the activities due to the 
constructive impulse, no matter how occasioned, reveal to 
us all that we ever learn about the external world, and 
if the influence of imitation in this direction is wholly de- 



124 ^ liKOADKR KLEMP:NTARV EDUCATION. 

pendent on activities which it finds already in force when 
it becomes operative, then we must say that all that imi- 
tation does is to intensify the action of impulses to which 
alone, in the last analysis, our knowledge of the external 
world is due. 

Interaction of Impulses. — Nor has imitation a monopoly 
of this kind of influence. Is it necessary to say that 
what begins as a blind impulse to handle things may be 
continued through the desire to know ? Or that the boy 
whose combined constructive and intellectual impulses 
are not strong enough to induce him to experiment on 
things may be induced to do it through emulation ? Or 
that the child whose constructive, intellectual, and emula- 
tive impulses together are not strong enough to incite 
him to do a bit of experimental work may do it through 
the desire to please parent and teacher.? Or that the 
desire to do right may tip the scale when all other influ- 
ences have failed ? 

Now this interlacing and interacting of impulses may be 
regarded as the normal mode of human development. 
Instead of saying that imitation is the method of the 
child's personal progress, we should say that the child 
develops under the combined influences of all the impulses 
of his nature. No one, for example, ever became a good 
writer or a good talker through mere imitation. 

Of course the impulse that leads to both talking and 
writing is the social. But this alone, supported only by 
imitation — unaided by the desire to excel, by the wish to 
please, by the ambition to play one's part in life rightly and 
honorably — would inevitably fail to stimulate the exertion 
necessary to the achievement of success. 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: LMITATION. 



125 



Another Interpretation of Professor Baldwin. — It may 
be said that I have failed to grasp Professor Baldwin's 
meaning. He would grant, it may be contended, that the 
actions which result in growth are the result of the inter- 
action of the various impulses of the child. His position, 
it may be said, is that, however various and complex the 
motives that issue in action, the thing done depends on 
imitation, provided the doing of it contributes to develop- 
ment. 

If this is his doctrine, he is not exposed to the criticisms 
so far made in this chapter. In any event, it has seemed 
worth while to make them, because that interpretation of 
his teaching affords an excellent opportunity for stating 
the true relation between imitation and the other impulses 
of the mind. But according to the interpretation just 
suggested his theory is that, although all our impulses 
express -themselves in action, the particular things done 
depend on imitation. Child and man alike, in their 
amusements as well as in their more serious occupations, 
find in the various impulses of their nature the sources of 
all their actions. With no models for imitation, children 
nevertheless would play, and men would seek to obtain 
food and protect themselves against danger. The model 
only causes the imitating propensity to furnish a new vent 
for the other impulses. Without imitation, the actions of 
a human being would be due entirely to himself. The 
imitative propensity enables a man to combine with his 
fellows and learn from them. It causes children to play 
games which they otherwise would not, and men to seek 
to provide themselves with food and protect themselves 
against danger by methods which they would not else 
employ. It enables us, in a word, to gratify our impulses 



126 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

by the improved methods due to the experience of the 
race. 

It must be conceded that this theory contains a large 
measure of truth. No one would say that children and 
young animals in general are addicted to play because of 
imitation. But imitation is undoubtedly the reason why 
in one school cricket, and in another football, is the favorite 
game. 

Imitation and Intelligence. — But even in this sense it 
is not true to say that imitation is the essential method of 
the child's growth, and that society grows by " imitative 
generalizations of the thoughts of others." Sometimes a 
child imitates a copy simply because it is before him, and 
sometimes because he sees that doing what another has 
done will enable him to reach a desired end in a simpler 
and better way. Looked at from the outside, both actions 
appear to have the same characteristics ; each is an imita- 
tion of an action taken as a model. Viewed from the 
inside, the two actions are as far apart as the poles. 
The one is the result of a blind impulse to imitate ; the 
other, of the open-eyed perception that the imitated action 
is a simpler and better means to a desired end. The men 
who imitated their fellows in carrying their corn to mill 
by putting on a horse a bag with a bushel of grain in one 
end of it, balanced by a stone of equal weight in the other, 
serve to illustrate one kind of imitation ; the other kind 
is instanced by men who imitated the inventor who dis- 
covered that two bushels could be carried as easily as one 
by putting a second bushel in the place of the stone. To 
say that the latter action is due to imitation is to take no 
account of the essential factor in the case. With two 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: IMITATION. 



127 



models before them, men imitated one and rejected the 
other. Why ? Because of their intelHgence ; because 
they saw that one method of reaching their end was better 
than the other. If we are to describe the facts as they 
are, we must say that men influence their fellows in two 
ways : by performing actions which their fellows imitate 
simply because of their propensity to imitate, and by per- 
forming actions which are imitated not at all because of 
the imitative propensity, but because of the intelligence of 
those who imitate them. 

But this statement of the case does not do justice to the 
influence of intelligence. The actions of the stupidest, 
most unintelligent men are rarely due to imitation alone. 
The man who balanced a bushel of grain in one end of a 
bag with a stone of equal weight in the other did not do 
so, as was stated above, through the influence of the imi- 
tative impulse. He wished to carry corn to the mill, and 
he saw that this was a better way than the only other one 
that occurred to him — carrying it on his back. His ac- 
tion, it is evident, was due, not to his imitative propensity, 
but to his intelligence. 

It is evident, therefore, that the inventor who thinks 
out a new way and the man who adopts the method 
already in vogue for attaining his end do so for the same 
reason. The intelligence of the former enables him to see 
that he can accomplish his object in a new and better way ; 
the intelligence of the latter only enables him to see that 
he can attain his end in the customary manner. It doubt- 
less requires a greater amount of intelligence to invent 
a thing than it does to perceive its excellence. But it is 
not the degree but the kind of thing which is in question, 
and our contention is that it is utterly false to ascribe to 



128 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

imitation an action which is really due to a lower degree of 
intelligence. 

I submit, therefore, that Professor Baldwin is wrong 
when he says that society grows by imitative generaliza- 
tions of the thoughts of others. Society grows by adopt- 
ing the discoveries of others, and it adopts them because it 
sees them to be true. Urged by the desire to include the 
actions of living creatures under the most comprehensive 
induction, the Professor has ignored the fundamental dis- 
tinction between actions which are imitated merely because 
of the disposition to imitate and those which are imitated 
through intelligence. 

We shall not be mistaken, I think, if we suppose that he 
has made the same error when he says that the child's 
essential method of learning is by imitative absorption of 
the thoughts of other people. A boy may show his ability 
as a student of geometry in two ways : by the thorough- 
ness with which he comprehends and appropriates the 
demonstrations of others, and by his originality in making 
demonstrations of his own. Each is due to the exercise of 
his intelligence. The only sort of geometrical study which 
could be properly called the imitative absorption of the 
thoughts of others is that which consists in the memorizing 
of the language of a demonstration when the demonstration 
is not understood. And it goes without saying that Pro- 
fessor Baldwin does not mean to say that a boy grows by 
that sort of absorption of the thoughts of geometry. 

But if the Professor means the same thing by imitative 
absorption that I mean by the intellectual appropriation of 
the thoughts of others, why does it matter if we differ as 
to the terms to be employed in describing the fact ? 
Because (i) there is that in the life of the child which is 



THE CHILD'S CAPITAL: IMITATION. 



129 



accurately described when it is called the imitative absorp- 
tion of the thoughts of others, while there is a very differ- 
ent experience which is properly called the appropriation 
of the thoughts of others, because they are seen to be 
true ; because (2) both of these activities contribute to the 
child's development, although in very different ways ; 
because (3) educational science needs to discriminate 
between them with the utmost possible exactness, and to 
determine with the utmost possible precision the extent to 
which and the circumstances under which each is to be 
made to contribute its part toward the development of the 
child. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What, in Professor Baldwin's opinion, is the relation between 
imitation, and the development of the child and of the race ? 

2. Sta-te and illustrate his definition of biological, psychological, 
and plastic imitation. 

3. Sliow that he ascribes to plastic imitation much that is not due 
to any kind of imitation. 

4. State and illustrate what is meant by the imitation of thoughts 
and feelings. 

5. What does the story of the East Indian tailor illustrate? 

6. What does the fact that men are not influenced by seeing a 
panic in a flock of sheep illustrate ? 

7. Why was there so little experimental study of nature during the 
Middle Ages? 

8. State and illustrate what is meant by interaction of impulses. 

9. Illustrate the difference between doing what another does be- 
cause of imitation, and doing it because of intelligence. 

10. Show that what seems to be mere imitation may really be due 
to intelligence. 

11. State clearly the two interpretations which the text suggests of 
Professor Baldwin's theory and show that according to either of 
them it is incorrect. 

12. What, in your opinion, does Professor Baldwin really mean to 
say? 



130 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

13. Why is it important to discriminate between actions due to 
imitation, and those due to intelligence ? 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Are any of your own beliefs due to plastic imitation? 

2. Have you seen examples of plastic imitation in the pupils of 
your school ? 

3. Which exerts the greater influence, plastic or psychological 
imitation? 

4. Do you know of any scientific opinions that seem to you to be 
due to plastic imitation? 

5. What period in history is called the Middle Ages? 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE FUNCTION OF IMITATION. 

If it be true that we have a tendency to imitate any- 
thing that comes before us, and that this tendency is modi- 
fied by all the impulses of our nature, it ought to be easy 
to determine in a general way (i) the period when this 
tendency begins to assert itself, and (2) that during which 
it is most influential. 

When the Child Begins to Imitate. — Manifestly imita- 
tion cannot become operative in the life of the child until 
he is some months old. In the first months of his life he 
leads chiefly a vegetative existence. His consciousness is 
in too vague and chaotic a state to render it possible for 
outside influences to affect it except in the way of stimu- 
lations. We are, therefore, prepared to learn from the 
students of genetic psychology that it begins to be a factor 
in the child's development during the last two thirds of his 
first year.^ 

1 " The early intellectual life of the child is lost to us in obscurity. . . . 
But we are clear that the infant in the first months of life has nothing 
that we should call self-consciousness. The first clear evidence that we 
get of the presence of a form of self-consciousness intelligible to us comes 
when the infant begins to be observantly imitative of the acts and, later, 
of the words of the people about it." (Royce, Studies of Good and Evil, 
p. 182.) 

" Imitation begins to appear about the fourth month." (Sully, The 
Human Mind, ii. 218.) "According to Tracy there are few points so gen- 



132 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



When Imitation Exerts the Most Powerful Influence. — 

Now the considerations urged in the preceding chapter 
make it evident that the period in the child's life during 
which imitation exercises the most powerful influence on 
the course of his development is that in which his character 
is being formed, using the term character in the broad 
psychological rather than in the narrow ethical sense. The 
tendency to imitate everything that comes before us is for 
the most part held in check by the mature man. We 
deliberately strive against the tendency to imitate the bad 
manners, the incorrect speech, the slouching gait of those 
with whom we come in contact. We have formed our 
style, so to speak, in those particulars. But the very 
young child has no style ; psychologically speaking, he has 
no character. Boorish manners, careless speech, slovenly 
habits offer just as stimulating a copy to his imitative 
impulse as do the opposite characteristics. 

Influence of Heredity on Imitation. — It is in fact not 
true that even children are equally ready to imitate every- 
thing that comes before them. Boys do not long amuse 
themselves with nursery games, nor girls, as a rule, with 
plays in imitation of war. Heredity begins at a very early 
age to exercise an influence in favor of one model for imi- 
tation rather than another. But how slight is the obstacle 
to indiscriminate imitation which is presented by heredity 
in comparison with that which is offered by character as 
developed in the mature man, will begin to be evident if 

erally accepted without question by child psychologists in general as that 
of the beginning of imitation in the second half-year." But " Baldwin, 
like Egger, could not be sure of it before the ninth month." (Groos, The 
Play of Man, p. 291.) 



THE FUNCTION OF IMITATION. 



^33 



we remember that in very many directions heredity is en- 
tirely neutral. We have a hereditary impulse to talk. But 
this impulse is perfectly satisfied by the use of ai^y kind of 
language, good, bad, or indifferent. 

Probably what we have agreed to call plastic imitation 
encounters no hereditary obstacle whatever. How much 
this means will begin to appear if we try to reaHze the 
tremendous importance of its part in the development of 
the child and of the race. 

Plastic Imitation. — Bagehot has shown that the- char- 
acteristics which distinguish the literature of one period 
from that of the one before are due to it. " The true 
explanation " of how a literature in one period comes to 
differ from that of the preceding, he says, is " something 
like this. One considerable writer gets a sort of start be- 
cause what he writes is somewhat more . . . congenial to 
the minds around him than any other sort. . . . Some 
strong writer, or group of writers, thus seize on the public 
mind, and a curious process soon assimilates other writers 
in appearance to them. To some extent, no doubt, this 
assimilation is effected by a process most intelligible, and 
not at all curious — the process of conscious imitation." 
But Bagehot thinks, and truly, that it does not generally 
happen this way. " Most men catch the words that are 
in the air, and the rhythm which comes to them they do 
not know from whence ; an unconscious imitation deter- 
mines their words and makes them say what of themselves 
they would never have thought of saying. And as with 
the writers, so in a less degree with readers. Many men 
— most men — get to like, or think they like, that which 
is ever before them, and which those around them like 



134 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



[plastic imitation], and which received opinion says they 
ought to like ; or if their minds are too marked and oddly 
made to get into the mould " — if their nature is so posi- 
tive as to cause them to withstand the imitative impulse — 
" they give up reading altogether " or read old books. 

Bagehot thinks that national character arose in the 
same way. "At first a sort of chance predominance made 
a model, and then invincible attraction, the necessity 
which rules all but the strongest men [the men of the most 
positive character] to imitate what is before their eyes, and 
to be what they are expected to be, moulded men by that 
model. . . . Even in useful particulars the innate tend- 
ency of the human mind to become like what is around it 
has effected much ; a sluggish Englishman will often catch 
the eager American look in a few years ; an Irishman or 
even a German will catch it, too, even in all English 
particulars." ' 

We all know that the popular games of a school change 
from season to season, and most of us, I think, will agree 
with Bagehot in finding the explanation in plastic imita- 
tion. " Some ruling spirits, some one or two ascendant 
boys," make all the difference. If one of these ruling 
spirits leaves a school, and his place is taken by another 
who likes a different game, the new game will soon become 
popular. A change in the model brings about a change in 
the copy. 

Bagehot points out that belief is the main seat of the 
imitative part of our nature. " In ' Eothen ' there is a 
capital description of how every sort of European resident 
in the East, even the shrewd merchant and the post cap- 
tain, with his bright, wakeful eyes of commerce, comes 
I Bagehot's Physics and Politics, pp. 32, 37. 



THE FUNCTION OF IMITATION. 



«35 



soon to believe in witchcraft, and to assure you in confi- 
dence that there 'really is something in it.' He has never 
seen anything convincing himself, but he has seen those 
who have seen those who have seen. In fact he has lived 
in an atmosphere of infections belief, and he has inhaled it." ^ 

What we call Zeitgeist — the spirit of the time — illus- 
trates the same law. For a long period in Roman history 
the father had — and every one thought it perfectly proper 
that he should have — absolute authority over all the mem- 
bers of his family, even to the extent of life and death. 
Each succeeding generation of Romans was born into a 
society in which that opinion was held and acted on, and 
that characteristic of human nature which we have called 
plastic imitation made them cherish the same conviction. 

Every commercial crisis illustrates the same law. Every 
such crisis has two stages : ( i ) an almost universal over- 
weening- confidence in the possibilities of making money, 
which leads to wild speculation ; (2) an equally excessive 
distrust as to the probable results of investments — which 
precipitates a panic. Both of these stages are due to 
plastic imitation. 

Plastic Imitation and Higher Immediacy. — There is 

hardly any limit to the illustrations that might be given of 
the influence of plastic imitation. But if those that have 
been given are clear, one thing will be evident : plastic imi- 
tation is so strong a force in the lives of men that it is able 
to modify, or even altogether break down, the beliefs of 
mature and thoughtful persons. It requires a man of quite 
unusual strength of mind to be able to keep his opinions 
with no lessening of confidence in their truth, in the midst 

1 Bagehot's Physics and Politics, p. 93. Italics not in the original. 



136 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION, 

of a society that utterly disbelieves them. Is it not evident, 
then, that the young child, with its mind " to let " on all 
subjects, with no opinions to oppose to those of the minds 
with whom it comes in contact, must be entirely at the 
mercy of those opinions ? In a previous chapter it was 
pointed out that we take some things to be true without 
proof, and it was shown that we come by some of them in 
a way which was designated by the phrase "higher imme- 
diacy." We have, as was there illustrated, certain ideas 
as to the universality of law, and the nature of moral obli- 
gation, which we should not have had if we had lived in an 
earlier period in the history of the world — which we should 
not have if we had been born in a different civilization. 
Whence came those ideas ? How does it happen that the 
ideas and ideals of an able Chinaman are so different from 
those of an able American .? It is due, I think there can 
be no doubt, to plastic imitation. Europeans and Ameri- 
cans believe in the universality of law, and cherish certain 
moral ideals because from their birth they have been sur- 
rounded by models of those beliefs, and they have been 
compelled by the very law of their being to copy them. 
The Chinaman, having been surrounded by different 
models, has a different set of beliefs because he has made 
different copies. 

Signe Rink's Childhood. — From this it follows that the 
beliefs of the very young as to what is true, fitting, right, 
noble, beautiful, desirable — apart from objects which are 
desired because they satisfy the needs of the animal 
nature — must be the opinions of those by whom they are 
surrounded : they can be nothing else. An illustration 
may help to make this clear. Signe Rink tells of her 



THE FUNCTION OF IMITATION. 137 

childhood spent in Greenland : " Like all European chil- 
dren in the country, my brothers and sisters and I had 
a genuine passion for everything pertaining to Greenland, 
and accordingly, as soon as the door was shut on our 
elders we tried in every possible way and by all sorts of 
mimicry to identify ourselves with our playmates. My 
brother got himself up as a seal-hunter from head to foot, 
and I became an Eskimo woman with waddling gait, who 
was sternly forbidden to leave the house." And in speak- 
ing of her play with a Greenlandic girl she says : " Over 
our heads hung boots, hose, skins, trousers, and tiiniaks 
(underjackets) to dry in the warmth of the lamp or to be 
out of the way. All these surroundings formed elements 
in our play. In imagination we had sent our husbands off 
on a seal-hunt, and with thimbles on our first fingers, the 
Greenland custom, we sewed round flaps for the boot-soles 
of the absent ones."* 

Imitation and Character. — Evidently the readiness to 
take up the psychic life of the Greenlander — his life of 
thought and feeling and emotion, his life of aspirations 
and ideals — was just as great as the readiness to imitate 
his outward conduct. Professor Baldwin puts the matter 
very suggestively when he says : " It is not only likely — 
it is inevitable — that he [the child] makes up his person- 
ality, under limitations of heredity, by imitation, out of the 
' copy ' set in the actions, temper, emotions of the people 
who build around him the social inclosure of his child- 
hood. It is only necessary to watch a two-year-old closely 
to see what members of the family are giving him his 
personal ' copy ' — to find out whether he sees his mother 

1 Quoted by Groos, The Play of Man, p. 305. 



138 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

constantly and his father seldom ; whether he plays much 
with other children, and what their dispositions are to a 
degree ; whether he is growing to be a person of subjec- 
tion, equality, or tyranny ; whether he is assimilating the 
elements of some low, unorganized social content from his 
foreign nurse. For, in Leibnitz's phrase, the boy or girl 
s a social monad, a little world which reflects the whole 
system of influences coming to stir its sensibilities. And 
just as far as his sensibilities are stirred he imitates, 
and forms habits of imitating. And habits.? — they are 
character." ^ 

If the last two sentences are to be accepted without 
qualification, it would seem that the contention of the pre- 
ceding chapter is erroneous ; that Professor Baldwin is 
right in maintaining that the sole factor concerned in 
development is imitation. For if character is the result of 
imitation, and if the only resistance which imitation en- 
counters comes from character, then resistance to imita- 
tion is itself due to a product of imitation. Being what I 
am, I refuse to imitate certain models, but I am what 
imitation has made me. I refuse to imitate later mod- 
els because I have imitated earlier ones of a different 
type. 

Professor Baldwin has himself shown us in the para- 
graph we have quoted how his statement is to be qualified : 
the child makes up his personality by imitation " under 
limitations of heredity " — and exceedingly important limi- 
tations. Character, therefore, — that which enables us to 
offer effective resistance to imitation, — is the product of 
imitation atid the other hereditary tendencies and capaci- 
ties of our nature. 

1 Baldwin, Mental Develbpment, p. 357 



THE FUNCTION OF IMITATION. 



139 



Imitation and Reason. — We may, then, concisely an- 
swer the two questions asked at the beginning of this chap- 
ter as follows : (i) Imitation begins to be a factor in the 
development of the child in the latter part of the first 
year of his life. (2) Although it never ceases to exert an 
influence, that influence constantly diminishes with the de- 
velopment of the intelligence and of the moral and aesthetic 
nature. The function of imitation, then, as Professor 
Groos has well said, is to go before intelligence and pre- 
pare the way for it. The ideal man, the philosopher of 
Plato's Republic, the sage of the Stoics, the man who 
illustrates in his nature Mr. Herbert Spencer's concep- 
tion of complete living or Dr. Dewey's notion of perfect 
character, would be entirely free from the influence of 
imitation. His life would be a strenuous and coaisistent 
effort to realize his own ethical, aesthetic, and intellectual 
ideals under the guidance of his own reason. Looking at 
the matter in this ideal way, we have at one end of the 
line — say when the child is about a year old — imitation 
as the great controlling force, apart from the impulses 
to eat, drink, sleep, and the like, in the child's life ; at th5\ 
other end reason has become supreme. But the rule of 
reason has been substituted for that of imitation only little 
by little, and imitation controlled in the beginning in order 
that reason might govern in the end. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. State in your own language the substance of this chapter. 

2. Why does imitation exert a more powerful influence during the 
early part of a child's life than it does afterwards? 

3. What is heredity, and what influence does it exert on imitation 1 



140 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

4. State the influence of imitation on (a) literature, (d) national 
character, (c) games, (a) the spirit of the times. 

5. Why did successive generations of Romans think it was right 
for a father to have absolute authority over his son? 

6. Explain "lower immediacy," "raediacy," and "higher imme- 
diacy." 

7. Show that the beliefs gained through higher immediacy are due 
to plastic imitation. 

8. What is the relation (a) between imitation and intelligence, (i) 
between imitation and character? 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. There is a period in the life of a human being which might be 
described as the instinctive, another as the imitative, and a third as 
the intelligent period ; what, roughly speaking, would you say these 
periods correspond to ? 

2. Mention some of the instincts of human beings. 

3. Can you cite examples which seem to you to show the influence 
of heredity? 

4. What is the difference between heredity and character? 

5. Can you illustrate from your own observation the influence of 
imitation on language and games? 

6. Does imitation account for the beginning of the Roman custom, 
or merely for its continuance ? 

7. How does the commercial crisis of 1S17-19 illustrate the influ- 
ence of plastic imitation ? 

8. What is the relation between imitation and tradition? 

9. Does imitation, or reason, exert the greater influence over the 
lives of most men? 



CHAPTER XII. 

HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED: 

IMITATION. 

President Eliot on the Public School. — Some impor- 
tant pedagogical inferences may be drawn from the con- 
clusions we have just reached. These conclusions enable 
us to see that we may expect too much of the school — 
much indeed, in the nature of the case, that it is impossible 
for it to accomplish. President Eliot's recent declaration 
before a state teachers' association " that our common 
schools have failed signally to cultivate general intelli- 
gence, as is evinced by the failure to deal adequately with 
the liquor problem, by the prevalence of gambling, of 
strikes accompanied with violence, and by the persistency 
of the spoils system," ^ makes one wonder whether even 
he realizes the inevitable limitations of the school. At 
whose door are we to lay the responsibility for the liquor 
evil, gambling, and the continuance of the spoils system .'' 
Primarily at the door of society. Society, or at any rate 
a portion of it, approves of gambling, drinking intoxicat- 
ing liquor, the spoils system, and the average man gets 
his ideas as to what is proper and right, through plastic 
imitation, from society. The school is indeed to a limited 
extent responsible for the ideas and ideals of society, but 
only to a limited extent. If every teacher in all the 
schools of the country were a Socrates or a Pestalozzi, we 

^ A newspaper condensation of his argument. 
141 



142 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



should Still have gambling and drunkenness and the other 
evils mentioned by President Eliot, although not so much 
of them. These evils are not due primarily to lack of 
intelligence. The gamblers, the drunkards, the politicians 
who thrive on the spoils system, and the people who 
approve it will compare very favorably in point of intelli- 
gence with their neighbors. So far as the source of these 
evils is not found in ineradicable elements of human nature, 
they are found in the ideals of society. Alcibiades, one of 
the most gifted pupils of one of the most gifted teachers 
in the world, was not prevented from living a life which 
did the utmost violence to all the precepts of Socrates. 
The great sophist, as Plato fitly called the Athenian public, 
corrupted him. Socrates told him that "spiritual wealth" 
is the only thing worth living for in this world. But 
Athenian society told him a very different story — that 
money, position, pleasure, are the important matters ; and 
he listened to its voice, and that in spite of the fact that 
the teaching of Socrates made ''his heart leap within 
him " and his eyes rain tears.^ 

Imitation the Chief Source of Ideals. — The truth is, 
the school can do much more to cjuicken the intelligence 
of its pupils than to ennoble their ideals. When the boy 
leaves school in the afternoon he is subjected to no influ- 
ences that directly tend to weaken the intellectual fibre 
or dim the insight which the performance of the day's 
tasks has given him. His added intellectual power is his 
as an inalienable possession. Can this be said of any im- 
pulse which he may have received towards higher ideals 
of conduct ? He goes, it may be, to a home in which the 

1 Plato's Symposium. 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 



143 



one standard by which all thmgs are measured is money. 
He mingles, perhaps, with companions who value a thing 
only as there is money in it. He listens, possibly, to con- 
versations in which pity and contempt are commingled for 
the man who for the sake of a phantom called duty fore- 
goes an opportunity to get rich. He reads newspapers, 
perchance, whose columns are filled with the doings of 
millionaires — what they wear, what they eat, when they 
dine, how many hours they sleep. In this event what is 
to become of his impulse towards higher ideals ? 

The force of these considerations so crudely presented 
will be all the more evident if it is borne in mind that he 
cannot get from his intellect any firm support for his ideals. 
These, as in the case of every boy or man, have their roots 
in the emotions, and when he undertakes to transplant them 
to his intellect he undertakes a problem which has per- 
plexed, the profoundest of the philosophers. We were all 
reading, a year ago, about the titled English ladies who were 
devoting all their time and energies to the devising of 
toilets for the coronation. To most of us it seems a poor 
use to put one's life to, but by what arguments could we 
induce those ladies to accept our point of view ? Could 
we convince any one of them that she would not like to be 
known as the wearer of the most beautiful gown or the 
costliest gems on that occasion .-' The supreme aim of 
many men is the achievement of some sort of reputation ; 
one as an expert whist or golf or chess player, another as 
an influential member of Congress without regard to the 
means whereby the influence is to be acquired or the 
objects for which it is to be used, still another as a giver of 
the finest dinners, and so on. Poor aim, you say. Yes, 
but what are you going to do about it .? How are you going 



144 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



to convince those who care supremely for insignificant 
things that their ideals are unworthy of an intelligent being ? 
It is only the philosopher who can subject his ideals to a 
searching investigation, and how many of us are philoso- 
phers ? Most of us never ask ourselves whether what we 
care for supremely is worth our regard, — and what we 
care for depends, for the most part, on the likings of those 
with whom we associated in the formative period of our 
hves. 

It is, therefore, vain to expect from the school as much in 
the way of elevating ideals of life as we may reasonably 
hope from it in the way of quickening the intelligence. 
But while plastic imitation has very much to do with deter- 
mining ideals, it is not the only factor. As we saw in the 
preceding chapter, the hereditary nature of the child will 
not permit him to accept every model with equal readiness, 
and the earnest teacher may be perfectly confident that 
his efforts towards elevating his pupil's ideals will find a 
powerful ally in the natures of some of them, an ally so 
powerful as to enable them to withstand all the antagonistic 
influences that may be brought to bear upon them. 

Cardinal Newman on Imitation. — Our point of view also 
enables us to perceive the mode in which the teacher must 
do his work in this respect, provided he is to do it at all. 
Those only can inculcate a reverence for high ideals who 
feel that reverence themselves. That profound student of 
human nature Cardinal Newman, in a remarkable essay on 
"Personal Influence the Means of Propagating Truth," 
dwelt on this fact at great length. " The silent conduct 
of a conscientious man," he truly said, "secures for him 
from beholders a feeling different in kind from any which 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 



145 



is created by the more versatile and garrulous reason" — or, 
as I should say, by any mere appeal to the intellect. And 
such conduct excites such feelings because it is itself in- 
spired by a profound reverence for goodness, and thereby 
tends to awaken it in others. It is "difficult," he also says, 
" to estimate the moral power which a single individual, 
trained to practise what he teaches, may acquire in his 
own circle in the course of years." And that moral power 
is due, in the last analysis, to devotion to his highest ideals 
of conduct and of truth. 

Imitation and Character-building. — We have been hear- 
ing a good deal of late — and none too much — about 
character-building as the most important aim of education, 
and the Herbartians have been unwearied in telling us how 
to arrange courses of study to that end. But they concen- 
trate at-tention on the wrong point. Doubtless the true 
teacher will find himself handicapped by an ill-arranged, 
injudicious course of study. In the matter of character- 
building, however, it is the teacher, and not the course of 
study, that counts. And the teacher whose influence tells 
is not of necessity the one with the greatest amount of 
knowledge or of intellectual power, but the one with a 
supreme regard for the things that make life worth the 
living. 

Imitation During the Kindergarten Period. — Our point 
of view also enables us to see a new reason for making the 
Kindergarten a part of the public-school system. It would, 
as we know, never be true to say that during any period of 
the child's life imitation has the field to itself. But that, 
as we have seen, is more nearly true of the Kindergarten 



146 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

period than of any other. Models of all sorts make a far 
more powerful and undiscriminating appeal to him then than 
they do when, at a later period, his character has begun to 
develop. Now there are certain phases of education that 
are very well described by saying that they consist in put. 
ting before the pupil models to be imitated. It is one aim 
of education throughout to keep before the pupil certain 
models of clear and accurate and discriminating thinking, 
of correct feeling, and of strenuous willing, in the hope 
that he may imitate them. If there is a period in the life 
of the child when he is readier to imitate any kind of 
model than he ever is again, that is the period when it is 
above all things incumbent on society to do what it can to 
bring him in contact with those who are worthy of being 
imitated. That period is the Kindergarten period. 

Imitation in Dress, etc. — The influence of imitation in 
such external matters as dress, neatness, deportment, lan- 
guage, is self-evident. A pupil whose habits in these par- 
ticulars are not what they ought to be may be stimulated 
to form correct ones by the example of a good teacher. 

But it has not been so often noticed that carelessness in 
these matters may materially diminish the influence of 
teachers in more important directions in the case of pupils 
who in matters of dress and deportment are above re- 
proach. It requires a trained eye to see a diamond in 
the rough. And admirable traits of intellect and of charac- 
ter, concealed by untidiness in dress or a disregard of some 
of the smaller conventions of life, may either not be seen 
by pupils of fastidious taste, or may appear unadmirable 
because of their associations. It is said that in a certain 
school in Chicago which is attended by many children of 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO «E INVESTED. 



147 



wealthy parents, some of the pupils do not recognize their 
teachers when they meet them on the street. This may, 
of course, be due to the fact that the teachers are looked 
down upon because they are poor. If so, it is simple snob- 
bishness, and no more is to be said about it. But it may 
be due to the fact that the teachers are careless in matters 
upon which their pupils have been taught to lay great 
stress. In that case those teachers have deprived them- 
selves of the power of rendering service to their pupils in 
the most important matters. It is a well-known fact that 
the average Chinaman thinks himself vastly superior to the 
average European or American because our manners and 
customs are different from and therefore, from his point 
of view, inferior to his. Teachers need to understand, 
therefore, that when they fail to set their pupils a good 
example in external matters, the result upon the minds of 
some of these will be a repugnance to patterning after them 
in anything — a disposition to like what the latter dislike, 
and vice versa. 

Influence of the Child's Associates. — If the child is sus- 
ceptible to all the influences with which it comes in contact, 
it is the business of the school to do what it can to protect 
him from influences of a hurtful character. I once heard 
a teacher in Dayton, Ohio, say that she made a careful 
inquiry as to how her pupils — boys and girls from ten to 
thirteen years of age — spent their evenings, and she was 
astonished to learn that fully one third spent them as 
they liked — their parents did not know how. Where 
this is the case it is needless to say that the work of the 
school during the day must be limited to the production 
of some small effect upon the intellect, imparting some 



148 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

scraps of knowledge and developing some little intellectual 
power. The boy's real teachers, those who are giving him 
his ideals of life and conduct, are the companions with 
whom he spends his evenings. 

It does not fall within the province of this book to point 
out particular modes for dealing with such an evil. The 
problem is a difficult one, and all the more so because of 
the fact that so many of the children have scarcely any- 
thing that deserves to be called a home. But if it is 
worth while for the American people to spend nearly two 
hundred million dollars for free education, it must be worth 
while for them to do something towards supplying the 
practically homeless children in our cities and towns with 
amusements and recreations which they may enjoy under 
such circumstances as will promote the work of the school. 
Education is a serious business. Once we come to under- 
stand how serious it is, we shall find some means of dimin- 
ishing the number of those who spend their evenings in 
such a way as to bring to naught the efforts of the school 
to exert a moral influence. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What criticism has President Eliot recently made on the public 
schools, and why is it unjust? 

2. What is the chief source of a pupil's ideals, and why ? 

3. The pupil "cannot get from his intellect any firm support for 
his ideal." Explain. 

4. In what way is personal influence a means of propagating 
truth ? 

5. What is the relation between imitation and the formation of 
character? 

6. Why is imitation so influential during the kindergarten period? 

7. Why does the average Chinaman think himself superior to the 
American ? 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 149 

8. What is the bearing of this fact on education? 

9. Why may a child's associates exert a greater influence on his 
life than the school ? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. What is meant by the spoils system, and in whose administra- 
tion did it originate ? 

2. What makes possible its continuance? 

3. How does the story of Alcibiades illustrate the influence of 
imitation ? 

4. How was it that such a man as he could be so deeply affected 
by the teaching of Socrates ? 

5. Show that ideals are not produced by argument. 

6. What sort of imitation exerts the greater influence during the 
period of maturity, and in what way? 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED : 
MANUAL TRAINING. 

Curiosity. — In the preceding chapters some of the more 
important of the child's impulses were considered. Among 
those enumerated were curiosity and the constructive im- 
pulse. As to the former of these no discussion is neces- 
sary, at least as far as the general principle is concerned. 
All are agreed that in the first years of his school life we 
must bring the child face to face with nature and man 
because, among other reasons, he has a desire to learn 
about them. No such agreement as to the use to be made 
of his constructive impulse exists. Judging by the practice 
of American schools, we are justified in concluding that 
the general opinion is that this impulse is to be ignored. 
The child, the very embodiment and personification of 
action, the closest approximation to a perpetual-motion 
machine the world has ever known, is to be treated as 
though his one supreme desire is to sit still and learn ! 

The Constructive Impulse. — How fundamentally, fatally 
wrong this is we shall begin to see if we but recall the 
methods by which the child has acquired the attainments 
he possesses when he begins his school life. When he 
was a baby in his mother's arms he began, as we may say, 
to make a study of his surroundings. In the nature of the 
case he had to proceed without help : no one could assist 

150 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 151 

him until he had gained some knowledge of the meanings 
of words and gestures. When his rudimentary knowledge 
of language made it possible tor others to aid him by tell- 
ing him something of the names and properties of things, 
the process of learning about things for himself went on 
unremittingly. We know how the child gained this knowl- 
edge : it was not by passive observation, but through the 
practical manipulation of things. The child's play, as we 
have seen, is largely the gratification of his constructive 
impulses. It is this play, this incessant handling of things, 
this "setting up and knocking down, this putting together 
and pulling apart," by which he has been learning about 
the world before he goes to school. Shall the school be 
wiser than nature ? Shall it neglect an impulse which 
under the tuition of nature enabled the child to make such 
rapid advances .'' Shall the investigation and manipulation 
of objects cease when his school life begins ? Shall no 
use be made of his hands except to hold a book and a 
pencil .'' This is of course equivalent to asking whether 
manual training shall have a place in the school, and that 
from the very start. If the analysis already made is 
correct, there can be no doubt about the answer. No 
one calls in question the value of object-teaching. Object- 
teaching is a continuation in the school of the same obser- 
vational processes so active in the mind of the child before 
going to school. It aims to extend the same kind of 
knowledge that was acquired through observation out of 
school, and to make that already acquired more accurate 
and definite. On precisely similar grounds it is clear 
that the activity of the hands ought to go on, that the 
processes through which the child has already gained an 
intimate and vivid sense of reality should continue until, 



152 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

perhaps, they culminate in the laboratory of the high school 
and the college. Professor James truly says that one not 
taught by these methods, one " brought up exclusively by 
books, carries through life a certain remoteness from real- 
ity ; he stands, as it were, out of the pale, and feels that 
he stands so ; and often suffers a kind of melancholy from 
which he might have been rescued by a more real educa- 
tion." True as this is — and many a bookishly educated 
man wonders how Professor James was able to describe 
this experience so accurately — it is but an approximation 
to the whole truth. The man who has been trained by 
exclusively bookish methods is cut off from a large and 
significant part of the life of his fellows. He is like a 
man without an ear for music trying to listen to one of 
Beethoven's symphonies. As such a man hears only 
noise, as he perceives no harmony or melody, so the book- 
learned man stands outside the industrial life of the world. 
He hears descriptions of wireless telegraphy and typeset- 
ting machines, but he does not understand them. He has 
not the basal concepts which this comprehension requires 
and presupposes. 

Manual Training and Respect for Work.— Moreover, man- 
ual training tends to cultivate a respect for work. It has 
already been insisted on in these pages that it is the function 
of education to produce a certain effect on the emotions ; 
that he who puts a false estimate on things lacks the essen- 
tial quality of an educated man. It would be easy to show 
that havoc and confusion in Ufe are wrought by these false 
estimates, and in no way, perhaps, more disastrously than 
in making men feel that certain kinds of work which 
society requires fcr its well-being are not respectable. It 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 



^53 



is interesting to note how the ideals that ought to be pecu- 
liar to aristocracies linger on in democracies. Clearly a 
democracy ought to hold that whoever is worthily doing 
work which the world needs to have done is an honorable 
man. Democracy — the creed that asserts that in an ideal 
society each man will do the work in which he can render 
the most effective service both to himself and the commu- 
nity — ought surely to hold that any work that supplies a 
real need is honorable. A democracy conscious of its nature 
and its ideals would surely hold higher in the scale of worth 
any necessary work than white-handed idleness, however 
refined it may suppose itself to be. Strange that after all 
the centuries since Plato wrote his Republic and Aristotle 
his Politics the world should still need to be told that the 
honorable life is a life of labor ! 

This false notion as to labor, and especially as to the 
comparatively unrespectable character of manual labor, is a 
powerful obstacle to the realization of the ideals of democ- 
racy. It crowds the professions with men who ought to be 
manual laborers. " Mamma's darling must never be a 
blacksmith" — as though a first-rate blacksmith were not 
a more respectable man than a second-rate lawyer ! It 
robs manual laborers of the consideration to which they 
are entitled. It tends to create and perpetuate those artifi- 
cial class distinctions, those barriers between man and 
man, which it is the purpose of democracy to break down. 

Now a manual-training course, taught by those who pro- 
foundly feel the dignity of all true labor, would surely tend 
to the formation of a genuinely democratic public opinion. 
Apart from the influence of the teacher, such a course 
naturally conduces to that end. The boy in whom the 
intellectual interest predominates, working side by side 



154 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



with one in whom the impulse to make predominates, can- 
not help realizing his inferiority to the latter in manual 
capacity, cannot help acquiring some respect for his work. 
And the teacher, vividly realizing the position of present 
forms of manual labor in the development of the race, and 
clearly perceiving the character of its scientific basis, will 
surely improve every opportunity to bring these thoughts 
home to students of both classes, so that both may see and 
feel that the manual laborer also has his place in that 
development, that his labor also can be illuminated by the 
insight of the mind. 

This, it is evident, is the great need of workers of all 
classes. Whoever works simply for his wage, no matter 
what his work may be or the amount of compensation he 
receives for it, is a drudge.^ Whoever, on the other hand, 
realizes the relation of his work to the hfe of the world, to 
its historical life, to its scientific life, infuses his daily toil 
with the dignity of the mind. To do the work of a ma- 
chine, with no thought but of the product and of the wage 
to be received for it, is to degrade one's self to the level of 
a machine. To do one's work, no matter how mechanical, 
with a full consciousness of its relation to the life of the 
past and the present is to live a worthy life. The motor- 
man on the street -car, who knows only enough to stop his 
car and start it, who never thinks of the relation between 

1 In his able and suggestive inaugural address President Woodrow 
Wilson said : " We ouglit distinctly to set forth, in our philosophy of this 
matter, the difference between a man's preparation for the specific and 
definite task he is to perform in the world and that general enlargement of 
spirit and release of powers which he shall need if his task is not to belittle 
him." To prevent the work we have to do in the world from dwarfing us, 
to compel it to become a means of growth and development, is one of the 
jnost important purposes of education. 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 1 55 

the electric car and the countless machines that link it 
with the time when men knew no better way than to 
travel afoot and carry their burdens on their shoulders, 
who never gives a thought to the strange and wonderful 
force which he is constantly guiding and which obeys him 
so implicitly and so unhesitatingly, lives a life, so far as his 
work is concerned, not much above that of the dog who 
has only sufficient intelligence to fetch and carry at his 
master's bidding. The motorman, on the other hand, with 
the realization that he is, so to speak, the living embodi- 
ment of countless thoughts about transportation, that 
nature is obediently putting at his disposal one of her mar- 
vellous forces, that she stands thus ready to do work 
which the world has scarcely dreamed of when she receives 
the right word of command, is doing work which is of 
value in and of itself, not simply because it gives him a 
living. To appreciate the significance of work, to realize 
what it represents in the life of the race, is to rob it of its 
legendary curse. And to help in this direction is one of 
the functions of manual training.^ 

Manual Training Adapts the School to the Many. — It 

directly follows from this that manual-training courses 
adapt the school to those whose dominant interest it is to 
do as well as to those whose dominant interest it is to 
kjioiv. When the history of education in the nineteenth 

^ It is indeed true that in this country, at least, a motorman who puts 
that kind of intelligence into his work is almost certain of promotion. 
President Vreeland, for example, of the Metropolitan Street Railway Com- 
pany of New York was, in early manhood, a brakeman on the Long Island 
Railroad. But quite independently of that, the argument of the text is that 
any legitimate work may be done in such a spirit as to make it a thing 
worth doing for its own sake. 



156 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

centurj- comes to be written in the light of the ideals of 
the twentieth, it will surely seem remarkable that in a 
large number of the States of the Union compulsory-edu- 
cation laws were enacted — laws to compel those to go to 
school who would stay away if they could, while at the 
same time the training which was thus forced upon them 
was primarily adapted to those who went to school by 
preference. The aristocratic ideals of the Old World, 
which in so many particulars continue to dominate the 
New, have shaped our courses of study in the interests of 
the few who desire a thorough education, of the small 
minority in whom the intellectual interest is predominant. 
No wonder that compulsor}^-education laws have been 
necessar}- ; that as soon as the law permitted, the great 
majoritv of our boys and girls have left an institution 
whose work was not primarily adapted to them. If our 
public school is indeed for the people, to qualify them to 
make the most of themselves and life, it will cease to 
ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority in this 
and in every other countr}- earn their livelihood by some 
form of manual labor. It will give them such a training 
as will equip them most completely for earning a li\ing, as 
well as dignify their labor and make it respectable in their 
o\\Ti eyes and that of the world, and \sith all the more 
earnestness since, in being adapted to the manual laborer, 
it is none the less adapted to the man who has mainly an 
intellectual interest. 

QUESTIONS OX THE TEXT. 

1. How has the child acquired the anainments which he possesses 
when he begins his school life ? 

2. Of what does the child's play consist? 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 



157 



3. '• Shall the school be wiser than nature ? " Explain. 

4. Show that the same argument may be made for manual training 
as for object teaching. 

5. In what way would manual training tend to cultivate a respect 
for manual work? 

6. What is the creed of democracy ? 

7. In what way does a false notion as to labor prevent the realiza- 
tion of the ideals of democracy ? 

8. "Whoever works simply for his wages is a drudge." Explain. 

9. What is the meaning of the sentence quoted from President 
Wilson's inaugural address? 

10. What is the illustration of the motorman intended to show? 

11. "Manual-training courses adapt the school to those whose 
dominant interest it is to do."' Explain. 

12. What is implied by the aristocratic ideas qf the Old World ? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. In what sense and to what extent should we "follow nature"? 

2. What is meant by " basal concepts " ? 

3. What is the relation of a farmer or a watchmaker to the histori- 
cal and scientific life of the world ? 

4. " To do one's work, no matter how mechanical, with a full con- 
sciousness of its relation to the life of the past and present is to live 
a worthy life." What is the relation between this statement and the 
conclusion reached as to the end of education? 

5. In what ways may the necessity for compulsory-education laws 
be diminished ? 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED: HIS 
ART, SOCIAL. ETHICAL, AND EMULATIVE IMPULSES. 

The preceding chapter sought to show that, for a variety 
of reasons, courses in manual training ought to form a part 
of the work m every grade of the elementar}" school. Of 
the child's constructive impulse, then, the same conclusions 
hold as of his curiosity. The only question we have to 
consider is the adaptation of manual training to the 
various stages of his development. 

The Art Impulse. — No argument is needed to show 
the importance of taking the child's art impulse into 
account. For the learning of memory gems, which is uni- 
versally required of children, some justification is found in 
the fact that children have the capacity to appreciate the 
beautiful in literature. WTiat the school needs to do is 
to recognize the art impulse of the child in its entirety, to 
treat it as a thing which demands to be brought into a 
many-sided relation \\ith life. WTienever a child does 
a thing less beautifully than he might have done it, the 
difference between what he has done and what he ought 
to have done should be impressed upon him. Tactfully 
and considerately, his dirty hands and soiled shoes, his 
disorderly desk and dog-eared books, should be made to 
offend his aesthetic sense so that in its promptings the 
teacher may find at once an ally in the maintenance of 

158 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 



^59 



good discipline, and a stimulus to actions which grow out 
of the art impulse. 

The Social Impulse and Language Training. — The so- 
cial impulse should be utilized in language training. If we 
remember that it is society that makes language possible 
and useful, that the same impulse lies at the foundation of 
both, it will be easy to get a criterion to test the value of 
language trairung. In language training only that method 
is wise which is based upon the social nature of the child. 
Dr. Dewey very aptly remarks that "there is all the dif- 
ference in the world between haxing something to say and 
learning to say something." ^ He who teaches the use of 
language by contriving that the child shall know some- 
thing that he wishes to say conforms to the child's nature ; 
he who compels the child to talk or write without having 
previously furnished a motive for saying something does 
violence to that nature. All that is needed to give the 
child an impulse to talk is to fill his mind with facts that 
interest him. You may indeed by disciphne, or by appeals 
to emulation or to the child's desire to please, create an 
artificial motive. But discipline which does not strengthen 
a natural impulse to action, appeals to emulation or to the 
desire to please for the sake of making a pupil do what he 
has no inclination to do at all, are perverted. What a 
child does under such influences is always done in a half- 
hearted, perfunctory way. 

This is the reason why teaching language without refer- 
ence to the other work of the school is absurd. When 
that subject is taught apart, the child is compelled to talk 
for the sake of saying something ; when taught in connec- 
1 Dewey, School and Society, p. 63. 



l6o A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

tion with the child's work, the pupil is easily stimulated to 
talk about what he is interested in. 

This kind of language teaching will react on the other 
work of the school. If the child does not want to talk 
about his lessons, it is because they are not adapted to the 
state of his development. 

The Social Impulse and the Moral Nature. — It goes 
without saying that the child's social impulse should be 
utilized in the development of his moral nature. It is 
hardly too much to say that without society, that relation 
of man to man which is the product of his social nature, 
the developrnent of the moral nature would be impossible. 
That is the meaning of Aristotle's paradox : " The state is 
prior to the individual." In other words, apart from or- 
ganized society the most distinctive and characteristic ele- 
ments of human nature would remain for the most part 
mere unrealized possibilities. It is by contact with the 
minds of his fellows as manifest not only in art, literature, 
history, government, but by daily intercourse, that the 
individual gradually attains to a realization of himself. 

Now it is the constant duty of parents first, and later of 
parents and teacher, to see that the child does not infringe 
upon the rights of others. Far wiser than Rousseau, Locke 
saw that the baby in its mother's arms could begin to ac- 
quire what he rightly regarded as the most precious wis- 
dom of life, the ability to cross one's own inclinations and 
follow where reason directs even though appetite leads the 
other way. As has already been said, the whole object of 
education is to train the human being so that he will be 
governed by his reason. And the most important feature in 
elementary education consists in the adoption of such meas- 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. i6l 

ures as will result in the child's being guided by another's 
reason until he is capable of being governed by his own. 
This must not, of course, be construed as meaning that up 
to a certain point in his development the child will be con- 
trolled entirely by another's reason and then wholly by his 
own. The true meaning is that there must be a gradual 
transition from the one state to the other. Little by little 
he comes to see the object of the teacher's requirements, 
and in so far as he does he substitutes his reason for the 
teacher's. Now these requirements, growing out of his own 
nature and that of the world in which he lives, will relate 
to him not merely as a physical and an intellectual but also 
as a moral being. And the wise preceptor, whether parent 
or professional teacher, will not only see to it that the re- 
quirements are fulfilled, but also that the reason for them 
is understood as early as may be. 

Rousseau and Pestalozzi on Moral Training. — One of 

the cardinal blunders of that paradoxical but wonderfully 
suggestive book on education, Rousseau's Emile, consists 
in the doctrine that there can be no training of the moral 
nature until the adolescent period. And few things in the 
history of education are more interesting than that Pesta- 
lozzi, who received his inspiration from the erratic French- 
man, differed from him so fundamentally on this point. In 
his detailed account of his epoch-making experiment at 
Stanz, Pestalozzi shows us in the most vivid way how the 
child's social impulse can be utilized in the development 
of his moral nature in the early years of school life. 

"Although," as John Morley says, " none can be vica- 
riously wise, nor sage by proxy, yet is it not a puerile 
wastefulness to send forth the young all bare to the 



I 62 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION, 

ordeal, while the armor of old experience and tempered 
judgment hangs idle on the wall ? " So Pestalozzi regarded 
it. In place of the cold, apathetic automaton that stands 
by the side of Rousseau's Emile, passionlessly manipulating 
the forces of nature in order to suggest or inhibit certain 
conduct, he puts an earnest, warm-hec^rted human being, 
kindling into flame the moral impulse of h's pupil through 
his own enthusiasm for goodness. 

The Social Impulse and the Study of History It is 

the child's social impulse, his interest in his fellows and 
society generally, and his relation to them, which justifies 
the important place which the study of history should 
occupy in the school. Not an anti-social being, as Rous- 
seau crudely thought, but the heir of all the ages, the 
child should get, even in the elementary school, some 
glimpses of the road over which the race has so laboriously 
travelled, in order that he may get something of that 
enlargement of spirit, that insight into existing social con- 
ditions, that knowledge of what constitutes the real welfare 
of a people, and that sympathy with, and charity for, his 
fellows which are so essential to rational living. 

Intellectual, Constructive, Art, and Social Impulses 
Contrasted with Imitation and Emulation. — A study of 
the child's intellectual, constructive, art, and social im- 
pulses directly suggests lines of activity which lead to 
important educational results. Because he is curious, we 
should teach him such facts about the world and about 
men as will at the same time gratify and stimulate curi- 
osity ; his disposition to make things should be encouraged 
because important educational results are thereby obtained ; 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 163 

his art impulse should be developed by directing his atten- 
tion to beautiful things, because the appreciation of beauty- 
is one of the things that make life significant ; his social 
impulse should be utilized not only by teaching him to 
speak and write in such a way as to gain the power of 
effective speech, but in leading him to form habits that 
will make him a useful member of society. 

But the other impulses of the child do not of themselves 
lead to any definite lines of activity. A child's imitative 
impulses tend to make him imitate any model that is put 
before him, good or bad ; his love of superiority creates 
the desire to excel his fellows in anything they are doing ; 
his love of approbation occasions the desire to be com- 
mended by his companions whether or not his acts are 
commendable. What a child does in consequence of these 
impulses, then, depends not so much on what he is as on 
what his' surroundings are. 

It is of course true that the children by whom he is 
surrounded are giving expression to the various impulses 
of their nature in the activities in which they spontaneously 
engage. And inasmuch as he and they have a common 
nature, the impulses which stimulate them to activity are 
sure to be shared by him. But while children have a 
common nature in the sense that all of them have the 
same impulses, they do not have these impulses in the 
same degree. When, therefore, it is said that a child in 
consequence of certain impulses does what he does, not so 
much because of what he is as because of what his sur- 
roundings are, the meaning is that the impulse which, 
apart from his surroundings, would tend to express itself 
in those lines of activity is too weak to spur him to 
action, 



164 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

The Place of Emulation in the School. — If this be true, it 
seems evident that it is the business of the school to utihze 
these impulses in the education of the child. If the child 
can be put in a position where his surroundings will make 
him desire to do what he would not otherwise want to do ; 
if he can be brought into contact with certain standards of 
excellence and, by having his emulative impulse stimulated, 
prompted to equal if not surpass them ; if, by appeals to 
his love of approbation, he can be moved to do what he 
would not otherwise care to do, the teacher would seem to 
be making wise investment of the child's capital — an in- 
vestment that cannot but redound to his highest good. 
Those who refuse to make an appeal to such impulses say 
in effect that a part of the child's nature is evil and evil 
only, so evil that to make a wise use of it in his educa- 
tion is impossible. At the risk of wearisome repetition, I 
wish to point out that those who would rely entirely on 
interest in the subject studied believe that such impulses 
as emulation, the love of approbation, the fear of punish- 
ment, should not be stimulated in the school. So general 
is this view that to oppose it requires some little courage 
in one who would fain be regarded as a progressive thinker. 
This book maintains that the spirit of emulation may 
properly be aroused, on the ground that (i) the interest 
growing directly out of the work will not be strong enough 
in many cases to induce the child to do it; (2) the idea that 
by a proper course of training emulation can be suppressed 
is absurd ; (3) it is a question, then, not of the suppression 
of emulation, but of a wise use of it. Utilize judiciously 
the spirit of emulation and you get work better done by 
means of it than you could without it ; refuse to make use 
of it, and you have only left it to express itself in ways 



HOW THE CHILD'S CAPITAL IS TO BE INVESTED. 165 

that have no vakie for education. To educate emulation 
out of a human being is neither possible nor desirable. It 
is not possible because education can neither make nor 
suppress any impulse. It is not desirable. Deal with the 
whole child in such a way that he will not wish to emulate 
unworthy examples. The result will be that his disposi- 
tion to emulate will powerfully cooperate with his better 
nature to promote his own best interests and those of 
society. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is meant by the art impulse, and how may it be utilized 
in the school ? 

2. Show by illustrations what the social impulse is, and explain 
the uses to which it may be put in the school. 

3. What is the relation between the social impulse and the moral 
nature?. 

4. "The state is prior to the individual." Explain. 

5. What did Locke regard as the most precious wisdom in life? 

6. What is the most important feature in elementary education ? 

7. How did Rousseau and Pestalozzi differ as to moral training? 

8. What did Moseley mean by "the armor of old experience"? 

9. What is the place of emulation in the school? 
10. Why is it impossible to suppress emulation? 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

I What is the relation between the cultivation of the art impulse 
and the end of education? 

2. Write an essay setting forth the difference between yourself as 
you are, and as you would have been if you had been brought up 
among a tribe of savages, cut off from the sciences, art, and litera- 
ture of the race. 

3. Froebel said that a human being is a member-whole : that is, 
that from one point of view he is a member and from another he is a 
whole. What do you suppose he meant? 



1 66 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

4. In what way has the telegraph helped the people of the world 
to realize that each individual is a part of a great whole ? 

5. Can you state the difference between Rousseau's conception of 
human nature and Froebel's ? Between Froebel's and Aristotle's ? 

6. Write an essay on the uses and abuses of emulation. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE COURSE OF STUDY IN THE PRIMARY GRADES. 

The Foundation on Which the School Must Build. — We 

have seen that when the child begins his school life he has 
already gained considerable knowledge of his fellows and 
of the world about him. Evidently one of the things 
which the school must do is to enlarge and deepen this 
knowledge. The thought, reflection, and contemplation in 
which with Aristotle we find a supreme end of life must 
relate either to men or to nature ; the beauty in the apprecia- 
tion of which we find another supreme end exists either in 
the world of society or of nature; the duty in the perfect 
devotion to which we find the highest end of all is learned 
through a knowledge of one's fellows and his relations to 
them. And all the subordinate ends of life — health, the 
intelligent performance of the duties of citizenship, the 
earning of a liveUhood, the wise training of children — are 
to be reached only through obedience to laws resulting 
from a knowledge of these two worlds. 

The knowledge, then, of men and things which the child 
of six has when he first goes to school furnishes the foun- 
dation upon which we must build. This foundation, as Co- 
menius long ago pointed out, includes some knowledge, 
vague and rudimentary as it of course is, of nearly all 
the sciences. Shall we, as seems to be recommended by 
high authorities, take no account of this knowledge and of 
the methods by which he acquired it when the child first 

167 



1 68 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

becomes a pupil ? Surely the methods by which he has 
made his acquisitions should not be ignored. The chief 
difference between the child's life in school and his life 
previous to the school age (supposing that it was whole- 
some) should be that the school should have him do 
consciously and systematically what before he did blindly 
and unsystematically. Armed with all the resources of 
child psychology, the school should surround the child 
with such influences that those original investigations by 
which he has gained a large part of his acquisitions may 
not only continue but bear the richest fruit possible, and 
this fruit not only in the form of immediate results, but of 
a growing love of study. The child's curiosity, let it be 
repeated, is his intellectual capital. Wisely invested it will 
yield compound interest ; it will grow and grow so as, under 
favorable circumstances, to make him an inquirer all his 
life. Not only so : the knowledge implanted by the school 
should be most carefully adapted to his state of develop- 
ment. It should as far as possible bear on his original 
investigations. These should whet his appetite for second- 
hand knowledge ; this in turn should stimulate his curiosity : 
it should both broaden his vision of the world and intensify 
his desire to know more of it. The school itself, however, 
cannot do much to help the child acquire a first-hand 
knowledge of men. His schoolmates and playmates, his 
parents, brothers, and sisters, the teacher herself, will 
constantly furnish material for this kind of knowledge. 
Perhaps the chief thing the school can do in this direction 
is to determine to some extent the kind of material pre- 
sented to him. By its discipline the school can exert a 
great influence, and it can also do something towards 
determinin": the character of his associations out of school 



COURSE OF STUDY IN THE PRIMARY GRADES. 1 69 

— in other words, the sort of knowledge of his fellows which 
he will acquire. But from the beginning the school should 
determine the sources whence his further acquisitions of 
second-hand knowledge of men are to be derived.^ 

Reading and Story-telling. — Important, however, as is 
this work — and it would be difficult to overestimate its 
importance, — the school should by no means rest content 
with it. The teacher should at once begin to read to the 
child any easy selections and relate to him any simple 
stories in which she can interest him — not only those 
about the heroic figures who have played a great part on 
the world's stage, but those of common men and women 
as narrated in the daily papers, showing that even humble 
laboring men may also be cast in the mould of heroes. 

Language Lessons. — If these are made the basis of lan- 
guage study, not only will it have a scientific foundation, 
but it will add to the educational value of reading and 
story-telling. The more completely these become a part 
of the very life of the child, the better they will accom- 
plish their purpose ; the more, on the other hand, his 
mind is active about them, the more they will enter into 
the very warp and woof of his being. Hence it happens 
that by gratifying, under guidance, his social impulse he 
is strengthening his intellectual impulse. 

Nature Study. — The stories and readings, and the lan- 
guage lessons in conjunction with them, will occupy but a 

1 This requires the intelligent cooperation of parent- and librarians. " It 
is said on good authority that some years ago the librarian of Worcester, 
Mass., S. S. Green, succeeded in connecting the schools so closely with the 



lyO A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

small part of the child's time. Some of the time remaining 
should be devoted to a first-hand study of nature. When 
the weather permits, a considerable part of this study- 
should be done out of doors. Such work in the company 
of a devoted, enthusiastic teacher, a teacher who is a close 
observer of nature and also a lover of children, will do 
more to quicken their observing powers than can be done 
in any other way. This work also should be made the 
basis of language lessons. 

Drawing. — We have noted the great activity of the 
constructive impulse. One of the forms in which this im- 
, pulse manifests itself is in the attempt to draw things. 
Observers of children tell us that this impulse begins to 
show itself at a very early age. It hardly needs to be 
said that manifold educational results can be obtained by 
its direction and guidance. Most of the arguments ad- 
duced for manual training can be urged in favor of draw- 
ing. Besides, drawing cultivates the powers of observation 
and strengthens the memory of natural objects, their pre- 
cise appearance, size, shape, etc. How valuable all this is 
for purposes of thought is self-evident. A large part of 
the material of thought is furnished by our sense-impres- 
sions, and the more definite these are the clearer will be 
the thinking that is based upon them. Besides an accurate 
knowledge of natural objects greatly increases our power 
to enjoy literature, a considerable part of which deals 
with these ; and the more vivid the images of the objects 
referred to by it the greater will be our capacity to appre- 
ciate it. Moreover, such knowledge is a source of keen 

library that he and the teachers controlled the reading of the whole rising 
generation of the city." (Hinsdale, Art of Study, p. 68.) 



COURSE OF STUDY IN THE PRIMARY GRADES. 17I 

sesthetic enjoyment in another direction. Cowper said 
that there was not a sound in nature that it did not give 
him a pleasure to hear ; not excepting, even, the cackUng 
of a goose. He probably meant that so closely associated 
with the recollections of early childhood were these sounds 
that the recalling them was a source of pleasure. 

Drawing may help to fill the mind with visual images 
that have a similar relation to the memories of childhood. 
Who is there that has left the home of his boyhood, never 
to return, that does not regret that he cannot recall the 
precise look of the old trees, the maples that stood in the 
yard, the cedars and walnuts along the lane, the brook and 
the rough boards across it, the bends in the country roads 
— every detail that may help the scenes of his childhood 
to live again in his memory ? 

Drawing also, like manual training, may be used to 
increase the interest of children in the more purely intellec- 
tual work of the school. "Take," as Mr. Tadd says, "a 
rural school where the children get a little reading, writ- 
ing, and arithmetic, in homoeopathic doses, and very little 
of anything else. See what glorious possibilities there are 
here if the teacher has any idea of drawing as it should be 
taught. Right at the door is the whole field of nature ; 
plants, flowers, insects, animals, stones, fruits, vegetables, 
can be produced without any trouble. The children are 
delighted to bring almost anything in the way of models of 
this kind. If they are near the seashore, the boys can get 
endless forms of life in the way of seaweeds, shells, crabs, 
fish, etc. These forms can be drawn and the reading, 
writing and arithmetic, and other studies, hung on as inci- 
dentals. The children will be fascinated and inspired at 
first hand. They will take an added interest in their 



1 72 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

work, especially when the doors of their minds are opened, 
and the things of which they see so much and know so 
little are transformed for them." ^ 

Music, Physical Culture, and Manual Training. — Sing- 
ing and lessons in vocal music, physical culture, and manual 
training should also form a part of the exercises of the 
school from the start. The argument for manual training 
has already been stated. Singing should be included in the 
exercises, not only in order to develop the musical capacity 
of the pupils, but because of its bearing on discipline and 
the general tone of the school. Vocal music should be 
taught for similar reasons, and also because children are as 
competent to learn the elements of music when they first 
begin going to school as they ever are. They should 
receive physical culture for the sake of health and grace- 
fulness, and also because, affording as it does scope for the 
exercise of the active propensities, it adds to the interest 
of the school. 

Number Lessons. — Lessons in number should likewise 
form a part of the work of the child during his first year 
at school. These lessons should be connected with, and 
be primarily for the sake of, the other work he is engaged 
in. 

Distribution of Time. — We have now covered the work 
that seems proper to be undertaken during the first school 
year : reading, writing, language lessons, number work, 
nature study, stories, easy literature, physical culture, 
manual training, singing, vocal music, and drawing. How 

1 Tadd, New Method in Education. 



COURSE OF STUDY IN THE PRIMARY GRADES. 



173 



shall the time of the child he distributed among these vari- 
ous subjects ? 

The Committee of Fifteen recommended two lessons a 
day in reading and two in writing, each fifteen minutes 
long ; an oral lesson in language, one in arithmetic, one in 
general history, and one in natural science, each twelve 
minutes in length ; an exercise in physical culture, one in 
vocal music, and one in drawing, these averaging twelve 
minutes each — making in all two hours and twenty-four 
minutes as the total time occupied in class exercises. 
They made no mention of literature as distinct from read- 
ing, or of singing as distinct from vocal music, or of man- 
ual training. If we add these exercises, and give to each 
of the first two twelve minutes, and to the last an hour, 
we shall have provided for about all of the time in school, 
assuming that a daily period of four hours is sufficient 
during the child's first school year, and that the other rec- 
ommendations of the Committee of Fifteen are accepted 
without modification. 

Young Children's Need of Supervision. — But it may be 
said that this leaves the child no time to work by himself, 
and that if he does all his work under supervision, he 
will not acquire the power of independent work. This 
question has been ably discussed by the late Professor 
Hinsdale in his "Art of Study." He insists with great 
emphasis on what no one will question — that when chil- 
dren begin to attend school they do not know how to 
study, and that their first work, therefore, should be done 
under direction and supervision. To say that because a 
teacher is moving about among her pupils, making a sug- 
gestion to this one and to that, they will not acquire the 



174 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

power of independent work, presupposes that she will give 
them assistance when they ought not to have it. But 
there is no ground for that presupposition. We should 
not condemn an educational theory as unsound because 
poorly trained teachers cannot apply it. Such a judgment 
would bar the path to every improvement in education. 
A wise superintendent, appreciating the fact that his pri- 
mary teachers are unable wisely to devote all their time to 
a single class of students, would not require this until he 
had qualified them for it by careful training. But there is 
surely a wide difference between maintaining that a given 
primary teacher will do more effective work by dividing 
her time among two or more classes, and contending that 
a properly trained primary teacher cannot best promote 
the interests of her pupils by devoting all her time to a 
single class. 

The Economic Difficulty. — Some people who are con- 
vinced by this argument may urge the economic difficulty. 
They may say that boards of education cannot be pre- 
vailed on to employ primary teachers enough to carry out 
this plan. Of course if they will not, they will not. But 
if they are amenable to reason they can readily be made 
to see that their attitude is a block to progress — that the 
schools under their control, at least with regard to the 
primary grades, will only "mark time." It was only in 
the last century that the economic difficulty seemed to al- 
most every people an insurmountable obstacle in the path 
of popular education. But little by little the world is be- 
ginning to see that whatever the interests of the rising 
generation demand must be made possible ; that every- 
thing is secondary in importance to giving to children 



COURSE OF STUDY IN THE PRIMARY GRADES. 



175 



such an education as will enable them to make the most 
of themselves in the world. Once convince a man that 
the school is an institution by means of which society 
undertakes to bring about a realization of its ideals, and 
you have gone a long way towards wringing from him the 
admission that whatever it requires for its most effective 
work must be furnished. 

Second-year Work. — The work of the second year should 
be of the same general character as that of the first. The 
child should be able to read by the end of the first year. 
The additional hour that he may be required to spend in 
school each day may be occupied in reading at his seat, 
with the exception of a short period that might be devoted 
to an oral lesson in geography. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What are the worlds with which the child has some acquaint- 
ance when he begins his school life? 

2. What is meant by " first-hand knowledge of men," and what, in 
the case of the child, is the source of it? 

3. What can the school do in the way of determining the charac- 
ter of the child's second-hand knowledge of men ? 

4. How may readings and stories and nature study be made the 
basis of language lessons ? 

5. What purpose is served by the teaching of drawing? 

6. Why should singing be included in the exercises of the primary 
school ? 

7. What follows from the fact that young children do not know 
how to study ? 

8. Reply to the economic objection to giving children in the 
primary grades the entire time of their teacher. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 
I. Show that the child has a rudimentary acquaintance with 
astronomy, zoology, physiology, botany, chemistry, psychology, 
meteorology, and history when he enters school. 



iy6 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

2. Show from your own observation that children can be interested 
in readings and stories as early as the first year of their school life. 

3. Through what law of the mind does the enthusiasm of a 
teacher influence her pupils ? 

4. "A large part of the material of thought is furnished by our 
sense-impressions." Will you show by illustrations that a part of the 
material of thought comes from another source? 

5. Illustrate the relation between an accurate knowledge of 
objects and the enjoyment of literature. 

6. Why ought the school from the beginning to aim at developing 
the capacity to enjoy literature.? 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SHOULD READING AND WRITING BE TAUGHT 
BEFORE THE AGE OF TEN? 

In the preceding chapter we discussed the course of 
study in the primary grades from what may be termed the 
traditional point of view. But high authorities claim that 
reading, as well as writing and other processes involving 
precise measurements, should not be taught before the 
child is ten years of age. Before stating the argument of 
the reformers in the case of reading, it is desirable to 
make a distinction. Reading for the sake of reading is 
one thing ; reading for the sake of getting knowledge is 
quite another. And it is evident that perfectly conclusive 
arguments against the teaching of reading in the one 
sense may have no weight whatever against the teaching 
of reading in the other. 

It is Argued that Reading should not be Taught Before 
Ten Because (i) the Function of Books is Supplementary. — 

It is urged that it is a mistake to teach reading before ten 
for the sake of getting information, because the function of 
books is supplementary — to supply second-hand knowledge 
when first-hand cannot be obtained — and that the learning 
about things for himself is the best use the child can make 
of his time during the first ten years of his life. This ar- 
gument is defective in two particulars. In the first place 
it overlooks the influence which second-hand knowledge 

177 



lyS A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

may exert on the child's desire to acquire knowledge for 
himself. That this influence is very powerful is proved by 
the universal experience not only of grown-up people but 
of children. In the second place it assigns no reason for 
limiting to ten years the period during which the child 
shall be entirely occupied in gaining first-hand knowledge. 
That before information can be got from books the child 
must have learned many things for himself ; that, when he 
is able to acquire knowledge by reading, it may be desirable 
for him to be confined entirely to first-hand knowledge, is 
not questioned. But precisely how long after the child's 
development makes it possible for him to enlarge his ex- 
periences by reading must we wait before teaching him to 
read .? Evidently those who say until he is ten years old 
answer the question just as arbitrarily as it is answered by 
current practice. We can determine whether it is wiser to 
teach the child to read at ten than at six only by prolonged 
and careful experimental study. Only by the careful com- 
parison of multitudes of children who have been taught to 
read at six with equal numbers of those with whom the 
process has been deferred until ten can any one say that 
those who spend the first ten years of their lives in enlarg- 
ing their experiences at first hand have been the more 
wisely trained. 

(2) Because the Child has no <' Natural Desire to Learn to 
Read." — The claim that reading is a process distinct in it- 
self, that it is not a thing that a child "takes to naturally," 
and that therefore it should not be taught before the child 
is ten, rests on different grounds. It may at once be 
granted that if reading is dissociated from the gaining of 
information, if it is taught merely as a translation of a lot of 



READING AND WRITING BEFORE THE AGE OF TEN. ly^ 

visual symbols into sound symbols — not for the purpose 
of getting the thought that such symbols may signify, — no 
child ever learns to read because he has a desire to, unless 
that desire results from his association with those who do. 
We have already had occasion to note that the child's im- 
pulses may be put into two classes : those that grow out 
of his own nature independently of his environment, and 
those that grow out of and depend upon his social nature. 
Now when a child sees other people reading, his imitative 
propensities make him want to do likewise. In that sense 
a child may have a desire to learn to read when learning to 
read is not associated with the acquiring of knowledge. In 
that case, however, a child wishes to learn to read simply 
because he sees other people reading. But in the very 
same sense it is equally true that the child of ten, or, for 
that matter, the young man of twenty, has no desire to 
learn ta read. Indeed it may be said that the older the 
child the more impossible it becomes for him to have such 
a desire. Reading is a means to an end, and the inherent 
rationality of human nature makes it impossible for us to 
have a desire to use a means apart from an end it is fitted 
to reach. When a human being, child or man, seeks to at- 
tain a certain object, he at once has an interest in what he 
perceives to be the means of reaching it. To dissociate 
the teaching of reading from the end that makes it val- 
uable- — ^the enrichment of the experience of the individual 
by the experience of his fellows — and then object to that 
teaching until the child is ten because till then he has no 
natural desire to learn to read, is surely a curious stand. 
Man has been called a tool-using animal. But if you put 
him in a situation where he must use his tools, if at all, for 
the mere pleasure of using them, where he can produce 



l8o A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

nothing with them, hammer and saw and chisel will remain 
untouched. 

(3) Because Reading is a Recent Accomplishment of the 
Race. — It is said again that reading is a comparatively 
recent accomplishment of the race — that ages and ages 
before it read, it talked. From this it is inferred that the 
child, who is supposed to reproduce in his experience the 
main features of the life of the race, should talk a long 
time before he is taught to read. 

This argument, when adduced to prove that we should 
wait until the child is ten before we teach him to read, 
is found to contain the same fallacy as the one first con- 
sidered. What it proves is that some time, indefinite in 
length, should elapse after the child has learned to talk 
before he is taught to read ; what it is assumed to prove is 
that this time is a determinate period. 

(4) Because of the Development of the Nervous Sys- 
tem. — Another argument in favor of the proposed reform 
is based on the development of the nervous system. It is 
assumed that the cerebral centres used in reading are dif- 
ferent from those used in speaking, and that the former 
mature much more slowly than the latter. Now if the 
facts as to the nervous system were as the argument 
assumes, then they would not prove what they are adduced 
to prove, for the reason assigned in the preceding para- 
graph. But the facts themselves are in doubt. All that is 
known about the intricacies of the nervous system is of the 
nature of surmises which give a more or less plausible ex- 
planation of certain phenomena. That the function of 
speech is intimately connected with a certain part of the 



READING AND WRITING BEFORE THE AGE OF TEN. i8l 

brain we may regard as highly probable ; that reading 
depends upon a different centre is by no means so certain. 
Moreover, this argument, in common with the preced- 
ing, has to reckon with a multitude of indisputable facts 
proving that children do learn to read at a very early age 
without any apparent injury to their health. When they 
can read fluently at seven it is a proof that the nervous 
mechanism at that age is so far developed as to make 
reading possible. The argument, then, falls unless it can 
be demonstrated that the health of children has suffered. 
That has not yet been done. 

(5) Because the Fundamental Muscles Develop before 
the Accessory. — It is urged also that the child should not 
be taught to write before the age of ten because his writ- 
ing mechanism is not fully developed, and that exercise 
will interfere with its growth and fix unnatural habits on 
its plastic elements. In a word, a theory has been carried 
over from the biological workshop to determine practice in 
respect to writing and drawing. This theory is that the 
child develops the power to use the main or "fundamental" 
muscles, those of the arm, for example, before the "acces- 
sory " muscles like those of the fingers ; it is based upon 
many facts of embryology and observations of infants. 
But it is one thing to prove that, since the movements of 
the arm are more fundamental than those of the fingers, 
writing, which makes demands on the fingers, must not be 
taught until after the child has had sufficient experience 
with the fundamental movements, and quite another that 
this experience cannot be acquired until the child is ten 
years of age. Besides, it is a matter of common observa- 
tion that infants at birth use their fingers for grasping, and 



1 82 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

soon begin to use the index-finger for poking at holes, etc. 
Now when we know by observation that very young chil- 
dren take to some delicate movements and prosecute them 
persistently, the question as to the age when it is proper to 
require them to perform the movements used in writing is 
obviously one of fact, to be determined only by actual trial. 

Objections Summarized. — From three points of view we 
may sum up the arguments against the traditional prac- 
tice in teaching reading and writing. We are told that 
we should not teach these subjects to the child of six 
because he is not equal to the strain. But, in the first 
place, he evidently stands the strain ; and, in the second 
place, those who decry the injury to health from reading 
and writing tell us to employ him in paper-cutting, paper- 
folding, clay-modelling, etc. — as if these things required no 
effort ! One cannot help wondering whether the ardor of 
the reformers is not due quite as much to a disposition to 
assume that what is traditional is wrong as to the strength 
of the arguments in favor of their contention. 

Again, it is argued that it is better to defer teaching 
reading and writing until the child is ten because he can 
then acquire these arts with so much more facility as to 
effect a wise economy of time. To this we can only 
reply with the Scotch verdict, "Not proven." No one 
knows how much more easily a child could learn to read 
and write in consequence of additions to his stock of 
knowledge. It would surely be presumptuous to assume 
that the traditional practice is in perfect accord with the 
nature of the child ; but it is almost equally presumptuous 
to assume that departure from it in a definite and arbitra- 
rily assumed way is any more rational. 



READING AND WRlTir BEFORE THE AGE OF TEN. 183 

" Old things may not, therefore, be true : 
No, brother man, nor yet the new. 
O yet awhile the old thought retain. 
And yet consider it again." 

Practical Argument in Favor of Current Practice. — So 

far the question has been considered from the point of 
view of educational philosophy. From that of educational 
statesmanship the question does not admit of debate. 
However true it might be that, so far as the nature of 
children is concerned, it would be better to wait until 
they are ten before teaching them reading and writing, 
we are confronted with conditions that make it absurd 
to consider the question in connection with the American 
public school. In spite of our compulsory-education laws, 
the education which a large number, perhaps a majority, 
of American children receive they get before they are 
ten years old. To have them wait until they are ten 
before learning to read and write would be to have them 
wait forever. 

Relation Between the Real and the Ideal. — It does not 
follow, therefore, that the consideration of the question is 
without value. Far from it. There is nothing that the 
world needs so much to know as how to educate the child 
most wisely. And anything that tends to make us open- 
minded, to make us substitute the attitude of intelligent 
inquiry for that of narrow-minded dogmatism, is helpful. 
If the ideally wise is not the practically possible course, we 
have a supreme interest in knowing what the wise course 
is in order to do all that we may to transform real conditions 
into those that are ideal. The idealist may see never so 
clearly that he must come to terms with existing conditions. 



184 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

But he knows also that existing conditions must come to 
terms with the ideal ; that in the never-ending struggle 
between the real and the ideal, although the real is always 
victorious, the ideal is unconquerable ; that ideals are im- 
mortal, while the real of to-day dies to give place to a new 
ideal to-morrow ; that each new real, in the course of time, 
must meet the fate of its predecessors and give place to a 
real which is a closer approximation to the ideal. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is meant by saying that the function of books is 
supplementary ? 

2. State and criticise the argument that is based upon this. 

3. How are we to ascertain when the child should begin to supple- 
ment his first-hand with second-hand knowledge ? 

4. State and examine the argument that is based upon the ground 
that the child has no natural desire to learn to read. 

5. State and illustrate the two classes into which the child's im- 
pulses may be put. 

6. What is it that makes reading valuable? 

7. Point out the fallacy of the argument that is based (a) on the 
ground that reading is a recent accomplishment of the race : (i) on 
the character of the development of the nervous system. 

8. What is meant by " fundamental " and "accessory" muscles? 
Illustrate your answer. 

9. State the argument that is based on the development of fun- 
damental before accessory muscles. 

10. Summarize the arguments against the traditional practice of 
teaching reading and writing. 

11. What benefits result from such a discussion ? 

12. State the practical argument in favor of the current practice. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

I. Show i^hat a child must have some first-hand knowledge before 
he can be taught to read, but that the question as to how much he 
must have can only be determined by experience. 



READING AND WRITING BEFORE THE AGE OF TEN. 185 

2. What is meant by the localization of cerebral functions? 

3. Can you cite examples from your own observation or reading to 
show that there is such localization? 

4. What sort of facts would be necessary to prove that the read- 
ing is different from the talking centre ? 

5. How are we to ascertain when it is wise to begin to require 
children to use the accessory muscles? 

6. State in the most general form the criticism to which all the 
arguments against the current practice are exposed. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

CONCENTRATION AND CORRELATION. 

The Law of Interest. — Although the subject of the pre- 
ceding chapters was the wJiat rather than the Jiozv of the 
primary grades, it was sought to show that in teaching the 
various subjects they should be related to each other as 
closely as possible. The reading, writing, language lessons, 
drawing, number, and hand work should be based on the 
nature study, the stories, and the literature. So interwoven 
should be the various parts of a child's work that the pupil 
himself should scarcely be conscious that he is "studying" 
different subjects at all. Occupied all the time with sub- 
jects that interest him, he should be led from one to another 
by transitions so gradual and at the same time so natural 
that he will seem to himself to be doing the precise thing 
that he wished to do. The reason for this is found in 
what is known as the law of interest. An object lacking 
interest becomes interesting through being associated with 
an interesting object. "The two associated objects," says 
Professor James, " grow, as it were, together ; the interesting 
portion sheds its quality over the whole, and things not inter- 
esting in their own right borrow an interest which becomes 
as real and strong as that of any natively interesting thing." ' 

Concentration Defined. — Now in so far as the work of the 
school forms organically connected parts of an interrelated 

^ James' Talks to Teachers, p. 49. 
186 



CONCENTRATION AND CORRELATION. 187 

whole, in so far as every part of that whole is connected by 
intimate inner relations with every other part, in so far the 
work illustrates the pedagogic doctrine of concentration. 
Says Dr. Charles McMurry : " By concentration is meant 
such a connection between the parts of each study and such 
a spinning of relations and connecting links that unity may 
spring out of the variety of knowledge. . , . Concentra- 
tion is chiefly concerned with the relation of different 
studies to each other." And he proceeds to illustrate the 
theory of concentration by an account of the procedure of 
Zeller, who attempted to group all the work of eight school 
grades around a body of historical narrative, so that the 
reading, language, geography, drawing, music, arithmetic, 
nature study, and literature should spring out of and de- 
pend upon it.' 

The Principle upon Which Specialization Depends. — 

No one is so zealous for the doctrine of concentration as 
to contend that it should be carried out in all the grades 
of education. All admit that differentiation must take 
place, that the student must begin to devote his time to 
special subjects, at some point in the university, college, 
high or grammar school. Upon what principle is this 
differentiation based ? If, according to universal admission, 
concentration must some time give place to what we may 
term speciahzation, there must be a reason for it ; and that 
reason will be the principle which, correctly applied, will 
determine the point at which concentration should cease 
and specialization should begin. To put it differently, 
every one admits that specialization must begin some- 

1 See also De Garmo's " Herbart and the Herbartians " for a detailed 
illustration of the theory of concentration. 



1 88 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

where. What we have to do then, is first, to ascertain the 
reason for it, — the principle in consequence of which con- 
centration must give way to speciahzation ; and, secondly, 
to determine at what point in the education of a child this 
principle becomes applicable. 

Interest in the Individual and Scientific Interest. — 

From the point of view of the educationists who contend 
that interest is the only motive that ought to be appealed 
to, the determination of this principle is easy. As long 
as the connection between facts belonging to different 
subjects is more interesting than the relation between the 
facts of a single subject, so long the method of concen- 
tration should be followed. When, however, the relations 
between the facts of a given science become more interest- 
ing, specialization should begin. We may draw a distinc- 
tion between an interest in plants and an interest in 
botany, between an interest in animals and an interest 
in zoology, between an interest in men and an interest in 
psychology. Science cares nothing for the individual as 
such. So far and only so far as the individual is a type 
of a class, an illustration of the universal, is it an object 
of interest to science. The particular flower which grew 
from a seed and which you yourself have planted, which 
you have nursed and cared for from the beginning, botany 
cares nothing for. You may be a botanist, but as such 
you are interested only in the universal aspects and rela- 
tions of plants. The same is true, of course, of all the 
sciences. Your dog that you have taught to know and 
love you, that barks with delight when you come, and 
looks at you so longingly when you go, is an object of in- 
terest to you, but not to the zoologist. Zoology cares for 



CONCENTRATION AND CORRELATION. I 89 

him only as a type, queries whether creatures of his class 
can reason, studies the resemblances and differences be- 
tween the class to which he belongs and other closely re- 
lated classes. The same is true of psychology. Contrast 
the point of view of psychology with that of the mother 
toward her only child. To the mother he is the centre of 
life and affection for whom she has lived and suffered, for 
whose sake she would willingly die. To the psychologist 
he is merely a specimen of the human race ; all that 
makes him precious in his mother's eyes the psychologist 
cares nothing about. It is hardly necessary to say that it 
is individual men and women — father, mother, uncle, 
aunt ; individual animals — Ponto, Marcus, Sport ; indi- 
vidual flowers — violet, castor-bean, and rose ; individual 
heavenly bodies — sun, moon, that interest the child. 
And L repeat, if his interest is to be the criterion, it is 
only when the child's interest in the type or class becomes 
livelier than his interest in the individual that the scientific 
interest should receive attention. But to determine our 
methods in accordance with the scientific interest is to 
break up the unity of nature into groups of facts — is to 
have our methods determined by the differences between 
things instead of their likenesses, is to forsake the principle 
of concentration for the principle of differentiation. 

Interest not a Criterion of Educational Method. — From a 
new point of view the doubt arises whether it is wise to 
make the interests of children the criterion by which we 
are to judge of the soundness of our educational methods. 
If we must not wait until the scientific interest is more 
intense than the interest in individuals before abandoning 
the principle of concentration, it is hardly open to doubt 



190 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



that at some point in the history of the child the greater 
interest must give way to the lesser. Bold would be he 
who should contend that the average man, even the aver- 
age educated man, to say nothing of the average child, 
cares more for the individual as the type of a class than 
he does for the individual for its own sake. Is it, in fact, 
desirable that he should do so ? It is individuals as such, 
not as types, that appeal to our affections, to our sense of 
beauty. The supreme sway of the scientific interest is 
the rule of an interest that leaves no room for love or hate 
or the sense of duty. It is the rule of an interest that dis- 
sects and analyzes and cares for objects only as materials 
for dissection and analysis ; of an interest that insists on 
the universal domination of law — that cannot abide the 
presence of a free man, an independent, unique source of 
energy, because such a man is not to be analyzed into the 
factors which infallibly explain his actions. It is the rule 
of an interest that insists on regarding the self-sacrifice of 
the mother, the devotion of the father, as the automatic 
result of brain activity with which the conscious being has 
no more to do than he has with the rotation of the 
earth. Now if this interest is not to predominate in the 
average educated man, is there not something wrong in 
the doctrine that the one thing that must determine the 
methods and subjects of study of the school is interest ? 
If even in the high school and the college students are 
more interested in biography than they are in history, how 
can the theory of interest justify the study of history ? 

Cultivation of Intellect : Its Place in Education. — This 
point is again raised because the conditions just presented 
make it evident that we cannot find in the child's interest 



CONCENTRATION AND CORRELATION. 191 

the principle whose application is to determine when 
the method of concentration must cease to be controlling. 
To discover this principle we must decide an important 
question : the place the cultivation of the intellect occupies 
in the education of a human being. In considering this 
question we must not suppose that we are obliged to 
choose between the training of the intellect and the train- 
ing of the emotions. This alternative is not rejected on 
the ground that you cannot make an appeal to the intellect 
except through the emotions. For the only form of emo- 
tion to which you must appeal in order to reach the intel- 
lect is the cold love of truth, the desire to know what is — 
a desire that is entirely consistent with the most absolute 
and profound indifference to the fate of every human 
being. No, the alternative is rejected because the com- 
plexity of our nature makes it impossible for us to deal 
wisely with one side of it without dealing wisely with the 
whole of it. Deal with the intellect alone, ignoring every 
feeling except that desire for knowledge which enables you 
to stimulate intellectual activity, and so far as your meth- 
ods succeed you have a monstrosity, a human Mephistoph- 
eles, a being who is perfectly capable of trying the effect 
of a new poison upon his mother, not from a desire to kill 
her, but in order to gratify his scientific interest. Deal 
with the emotions alone, or with the intellect only so far 
as it enables you to reach the emotions, and you will have 
a drivelling, ineffective, superstitious sentimentalist whose 
love brings nothing but misery to the objects of his affec- 
tion, because his conduct is not guided by the insight of 
a trained intellect. The patriotism of a citizen however 
pure and unselfish, the regard of a friend no matter how 
self-sacrificing, is no guarantee of wise action. As intel- 



192 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



lect without love leads to the actions of a devil, so love 
without intellect leads to the actions of a fool. Mani- 
festly, therefore, the school must see to the training of 
both. It is of course evident that exercises which train 
the observation and memory of pupils, in a sense train the 
intellect. But it is equally evident that the sole intellec- 
tual value of observation and memory depends upon their 
relation to higher intellectual powers. Merely to observe 
and then to remember serves no purpose but to retain a 
brute fact in the mind. Now in order that this fact may 
have any intellectual value, thought must take it up, must 
perceive its relations to prior and succeeding facts, must 
view it as an illustration of a general law. To train the 
intellect, therefore, in the specific sense in which such 
training has ultimate educational value is to train the power 
to think. 

Training to Think. — Such training is acquired in two 
ways : by thinking which is for the pupil original, or by 
rethinking the thoughts of some one else as set forth in a 
book or conversation or lecture. Now original thinking 
in the case of school children must be disconnected and 
unsystematic. The thinker takes one step, thinks back, it 
may be, to the cause of a fact, or forward to its effect. 
Systematic, connected thinking, the thinking that enables 
us to see a fact in a vast network of connected relations, 
is the thinking that constitutes the special sciences. 

From every point of view it is evident that only syste- 
matic thinking has high educational value. We hear a 
good deal about the importance of teaching the pupil to 
think. Dr. Schaeffer has aptly remarked that you cannot 
keep him from it. But you can very easily keep him from 



CONCENTRATION AND CORRELATION. 193 

connected logical thinking. That is the reason why re- 
thinking any branch of science, arithmetic, physiology, 
botany, is so valuable — it is going over the process by 
which truth is obtained, and strengthening the power to 
obtain it independently. 

Very much of the thinking that bears upon practical 
life ought to be of the connected, systematic sort. That 
statesman can deal most wisely with the question as to 
whether the United States shall enter upon a colonial pol- 
icy who sees most clearly not only its effect upon our 
immediate financial future, but also its bearing upon our 
entire national life for an indefinite period. That father is 
best fitted to train his child who is best able to realize the 
effect of particular influences upon the whole future of his 
son. But even in those cases where the practical needs of 
life require that thought should take only a single step, it 
is always important that this step be taken logically, that 
the mind be able to realize the difference between a guess 
or a surmise and a well-grounded inference. This power 
is best acquired by rethinking the systematic, connected 
thoughts which constitute a science, because such thoughts 
are logical. When, therefore, the intellect of the pupil 
is sufficiently developed to enable him to rethink such 
thoughts, and when his interest is sufficiently great to 
enable him to do so without unduly taxing the will, such 
activity should be required of him. 

As to when, in the case of the average pupil, this period 
is reached nothing definite can as yet be said. The prog- 
ress of education has but recently reached that stage where 
the individual pupil is deemed a subject worthy of inves- 
tigation. Not until generations of trained teachers have 
observed the results of intelligent efforts to stimulate school 



194 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

children to rethink the simpler connections which constitute 
science can anything definite on this subject be said. 

Correlation. — Correlation as distinguished from concen- 
tration means two things : (i) such an arrangement of the 
programme that the work in one subject may, so far as 
possible, throw light on the work that the pupil is doing at 
the same time in another; (2) such a method of teaching 
as will cause the pupil to see the particular fact he is 
studying in its relation to all that he knows. To under- 
stand the Missouri Compromise, for example, is to see that 
fact not only in its relations to preceding historical facts, 
but also in its relations to geographical facts. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. State and illustrate the law of interest. 

2. State and illustrate the difference between concentration and 
specialization. 

3. What is meant by the " principle upon which specialization 
depends" ? 

4. What is meant by scientific interest? 

5. Show that interest cannot be made a criterion of educational 
method. 

6. What place has the cultivation of the intellect in education ? 

7. Show the necessity for training both the intellect and the emo- 
tions. 

8. What is the difference between unsystematic and systematic 
thinking ? 

9. Show that the various sciences are the results of systematic 
thinking. 

10. When should the pupil be required to rethink some of the sys- 
tematic thoughts of science? 

11. Define correlation. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

I. Do you see clearly why education requires the more intense 
interest to give way to the less ? 



CONCENTRATION AND CORRELATION. ig^ 

2. On what law of association is concentration based, and on what 
is specialization? 

3. Illustrate the last part of your answer by the science of arith- 
metic. 

4. Are you clear as to what the principle of specialization is ? 

5. Are you equally certain as to its application, and if not, why 
not? 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 

General Method Explained. — There is no part of the 
Herbartian pedagogy to which more universal assent is 
given than to its doctrine of general method. Ratich's idea 
of a uniform method to be observed in the teaching of all 
subjects seems to professed Herbartians not merely, but to 
large numbers of educationists who call no man master, to 
have been embodied in this theory. What is the theory ? 
That, whatever the subject taught, the first stage consists 
in preparing the mind to receive what is to be presented to 
it ; the second, in presenting the matter upon which the 
mind is to act ; the third, in generalizing from the presen- 
tation ; the fourth, in applying the generalization to all the 
cognate facts known to the student. Preparation, presen- 
tation, generalization, and application, in a word, are suc- 
cessive steps or stages essential in the method of teaching 
all subjects without exception. As the journey of a trav- 
eller through an undulating country is a succession of as- 
cents and descents throughout the region traversed, so the 
work of an intelligent teacher consists of a series of ascents 
from particulars to generals, and of descents from generals 
to particulars. And as the number of ascents a traveller 
must make in a given journey is determined by the num- 
ber of hills he is obliged to climb, so the number of ascents 
which the teacher should lead his pupils to make is deter- 
mined by the number of generals or universals^— concepts 

196 



THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 



197 



or generalizations — involved in the particular facts of 
the lesson, each group of particular facts involving a uni- 
versal being called a method-whole.^ For example, if a 
lesson in grammar is intended to teach not only what a 
verb is, but the distinction between active and passive 
verbs, it contains three method-wholes, the first compris- 
ing that part of it which brings out the nature of the 
verb ; the second and third, those parts that make clear 
the difference between active and passive verbs. 

What Determines the Validity of Method ? — This is the 
doctrine. Is it true .-' It wUl be generally conceded that 
there can be such a thing as General Method, a method 
applicable to the teaching of all subjects to the extent 
only that the mind grasps all the subjects with which it 
deals in the same way. Methods derive their validity 
wholly from the mind. If a method is good, it is because 
it conforms to the laws of the mind ; if it is bad, it is be- 
cause it fails to conform to these laws, or conforms to 
them very imperfectly. If, then, the same method should 
be followed in the teaching of arithmetic, geography, 
grammar, history, language, literature, etc., it is because 
the mind moves in the same way throughout in dealing 
with each of these subjects. The whole matter hinges 
upon a question of fact — the nature of the action of the 
mind when it is engaged in studying the various school 
subjects. 



^ Compare with De Garmo's Essentials of Method, McMurry's General 
Method, Rein's Pedagogics, Lange's Apperception. The exposition of the 
Herbartian doctrine set forth in the text is based upon the work first 
named, which differs only in unimportant details from similar contributions 
by other members of the school. 



198 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

Action of the Mind {i) in Connection with Grammar — 

What, then, is the mind of the student doing when he is 
analyzing a sentence in grammar ? Classifying the parts 
of the sentence according to the functions they perform, or, 
using more technical language, applying grammatical con- 
cepts to the words of the sentence. When the student 
says that such and such a word or phrase is an adverbial 
modifier, he is trying to put it in its proper class, and he 
is able to do this only because he already has the idea or 
concept of the class of adverbial modifiers. Surveying, 
then, all of the teaching processes that terminate in the 
teaching of grammatical analysis, w^e certainly find the 
four formal steps of the Herbartians. The pupil must 
be taught — to omit the first step — that this, that, or the 
other word or phrase is an adverbial modifier — presenta- 
tion ; then helped to see what it is that makes the various 
words adverbial modifiers — generalization ; then enabled to 
exercise the power to use his generalization — application.^ 
But in the lesson in analysis only one of these steps, the 
last, is taken if the pupil has done his preceding work 
well. The sentence he is studying does not correspond to 
the presentation at all : it is material which he is using 
to show his mastery of the generalizations he is supposed to 
have made already. It represents not the foot of the hill 
up which he is to climb, but the bottom of the hill he is 
supposed to be descending. 

Omitting the stage of preparation, we may state all the 
movements of the mind which the teaching processes that 

1 For the sake of brevity the first step will not be illustrated in these 
discussions. It consists essentially in asking the pupil such questions and 
imparting to him such information as will best prepare him to appreciate 
and understand what you wish to teach him. A student would be pre- 



THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 



199 



terminate in grammatical analysis are intended to occasion, 
in the form of two syllogisms : 

1. This, that, and the other word are adverbial modifiers — accepted on 
the authority of book or teacher; 

The only common characteristics of these words are that they qualify 
the meaning of certain other words ; 

Therefore an adverbial modifier is one that qualifies the meaning of 
certain words. 

2. Whatever qualifies the meaning of a verb is an adverbial modifier; 
Swiftly, in the sentence, " The man runs swiftly," qualifies the verb runs ; 
Therefore swiftly is an adverbial modifier. 

(2) In Connection with History. — The movements of 
the mind of the pupil who is studying history are quite 
different. In grammar — to confine our attention to a 
single phase of the subject — he is engaged in forming 
concepts of classes and applying concepts already formed. 
In histpry he is seeking to know, not to what class such 
or such an event belongs, but its cause. Why was the 
Federal Constitution adopted .'' Why did the South oppose 
Hamilton's financial policy .■' \Miy did Adams send the 
mission to France in 1 800 .-* What was the effect of the 
embargo .'' The answer to all these questions consists in an 
application of some truth about human nature. The Con- 
stitution was adopted by the conventions of the various 
States because the delegates thought their interests would 
be promoted by a stronger government. The Southern 
States opposed Hamilton's financial policy because they 
thought it subversive of the interests of the agricultural 
States. Adams sent the mission to France because he 

pared to understand a lesson on adverbs by questions which should recall 
to his attention the function of adjectives, and which should make it clear 
that there are other classes of words besides nouns which require to have 
their meaning modified in the same way. 



200 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

thought an honorable peace even with the dishonorable 
government of France preferable to war. The embargo 
prostrated the commerce of New England and thus occa- 
sioned the violent opposition of that section. We see, 
then, that explanation in history consists in referring an 
event to the motives of the men who were responsible for 
it. It presupposes that the pupil already knows the mo- 
tives that influence men, and points out the motive in the 
case under investigation. Surveying all the mental activi- 
ties that terminate in historical explanation, we discern a 
process bearing some resemblance to the three formal 
steps of the Herbartians. By observing myself in this, 
that, or the other instance, I learn that I am influenced by 
such or such motives — presentation ; I infer that all men 
resemble me in this particular — generalization; and sup- 
posing that such or such an historical event was due to 
such or such a motive, I can tell why it was brought about 
— application. To illustrate : by observing myself, I learn 
that many of my actions are due to self-interest — presen- 
tation ; I infer that other men act from the same motive — 
generalization ; and I assume that I understand New 
England's opposition to the embargo by referring it to the 
same cause. But we see that here also the facts in the 
history lesson usually form no part of the presentation ; 
that they are matters to be explained by principles of 
human nature with which the pupil is supposed to be 
already acquainted. When this is not the case, when the 
historical fact is to be explained by being referred to some 
characteristic of human nature of which the pupil is igno- 
rant, the statement of the fact forms a small and a very 
unimportant part of the presentation. No one, for exam- 
ple, can understand the Chinese system of education and 



THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 20I 

Chinese life in general without understanding the extent 
to which that people is governed by tradition. The par- 
ticular fact, in a word, must be made to disclose its rela- 
tionship to a huge family of facts, and this can of course 
be done only by making these known to the student — 
in which consists the real presentation in the case. And 
if tradition in Chinese life is to be really understood, if the 
Chinaman is not to be made to appear to have a radically 
different nature from ours, if we are to realize our kinship 
and fellowship with him in fundamental matters, we must 
be helped to see the part tradition plays in our own lives. 
And the statement of the facts which enable us to see that 
we, like the Chinaman, have our opinions determined for 
us, and our actions in many cases decided for us, by plastic 
imitation, not by reasoning, will be the true presentation. 

Moreover, the movements of the mind which in the study 
of history terminate in explanations are very different from 
those which in the study of grammar terminate in analysis. 
Let us state the former in syllogisms, the latter having 
already been so given (see page 199). 

1. By observing myself and other people, I notice that some people are 
influenced by this, that, or the other motive; 

Men in general resemble each other in fundamental matters ; 
Therefore men in general are influenced by the same motives that influ- 
ence me and the people whom I have observed. 

2. Suppositions which are in harmony with all that I know and which 
explain men's conduct are likely to be true ; 

The supposition that members of Congress are often influenced by the 
desire to be re-elected is in harmony with all that I know, and also explains 
their conduct : 

Therefore it is likely to be true. 

Now a comparison of these syllogisms with those which 
express the movements of the mind that terminate in gram- 



202 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

matical analysis will make it evident that the mental activ- 
ities of the student in dealing with the two subjects are 
very different. We see by comparing No. i of the syllo- 
gisms on page 167 with No. i of those just given that they 
lead to conclusions of widely different degrees of certainty. 
If the student has been careful enough in comparing the 
characteristics of the various words known as adverbial mod- 
ifiers, he can say with absolute certainty that an adverbial 
modifier is a word having such and such characteristics. 
But it is perfectly evident that no amount of careful- 
ness in self-observation and in observation of others will 
enable him to say that he, and the men he has observed, 
are types of men in general, and for that reason more or 
less uncertainty always attaches to historical explanations. 
In illustration of this we may cite the universally conceded 
fact that Hume utterly failed to explain those periods of 
English history when enthusiasm was a potent and de- 
cisive force. Being of a bold, analytical temper, his his- 
torical explanations proceeded on the assumption that he 
was a type of men in general, an assumption manifestly 
false. If now we examine closely the two syllogisms to 
see how it is that they terminate in conclusions of such 
different degrees of certainty, we find that the one ends in 
a concept founded upon materials directly before the mind, 
and the other in a wide induction resting on a narrow basis. 
A comparison of the No, 2 syllogisms results similarly. 
We see that the conclusion of the grammatical syllogism 
may be and generally is absolutely certain, while that of 
the historical syllogism is often very uncertain. It is well 
known, for example, that while historians as a rule agree as 
to their facts, they differ very widely in their interpretation 
of them. As an illustration, take the contradictory esti- 



THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 



203 



mates of Jefferson, one class of writers regarding him as a 
self-seeking demagogue, the other as a far-sighted states- 
man and patriot. Here again the reason is not far to seek. 
By exercising sufficient care the student may be certain 
of the truth of the major and minor premises of his 
grammatical syllogism. The data are all before him. But 
the validity of the historical syllogism depends wholly 
upon the truth of the assumption that the assigned mo- 
tive was the true one — an assumption which is often at 
variance with fact, an assumption the possible error of 
which there is no guarding against. The student of his- 
tory, in a word, is confronted with this alternative : he 
must either refrain from making any explanations at all, in 
which case there is nothing corresponding to the Her- 
bartian generalization, or, if he explains, his explanation 
is nearly always exposed to doubt. But what we are 
especially concerned to note is that the historical syllo- 
gism is an illustration of that type of inductive reasoning 
which consists in finding hypotheses to explain facts. 
The supposition that the man or the group of men acted 
from such and such motives will explain the facts ; there- 
fore we assume that they really were influenced by those 
motives, although it is possible that they were actuated by 
motives of an entirely different sort. The grammatical 
syllogism, on the other hand, is an illustration of deductive 
reasoning pure and simple. 

(3) In Connection with Arithmetic. — In arithmetical 
reasoning the mental processes differ widely from those 
just discussed. If one man can perform as much labor 
as two boys, and if it takes three men five days to do 
a piece of work, how long will it take one boy ? The 



204 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

answer to this question is reached in two steps, each of 
which consists in the apphcation of self-evident truths. If 
one man can do as much work as two boys, it is patent that 
three men can do as much as six boys. And if six boys 
require five days to accompHsh a task, it follows that it 
would take one boy thirty days. 

Expressing these processes in syllogisms we have : 

1. Three times two are six; 

One man can do as much as two boys ; 
Hence three men can do as much as six boys. 

2. Six times five are thirty ; 

Six boys can do the work in five days; 
Hence it will take one boy thirty days. 

Here No. i does not terminate in a conception as in the 
corresponding grammatical syllogism, nor in an induction 
as in the corresponding historical syllogism, but in the 
application of a self-evident truth. And No. 2 is of the 
same sort. If now we make a survey of all the mental 
processes which terminate in the solution of this problem, 
we shall find nothing whatever corresponding to the Her- 
bartian presentation and generalization unless we give 
these terms a meaning entirely different from that which 
they must bear in grammar or history. How does a boy 
learn that three times two are six ? Not surely by trying 
with oranges, pears, apples, marbles, pens, etc., and, finding 
it true as to these, inferring it to be true in all cases. If 
that were so, there would be no accounting for his absolute 
certainty that three times two are everywhere and always 
six. 

No one so far as I know has ever seen a white crow. 
Nevertheless, if a man in whose veracity I have entire con- 



THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 205 

fidence were to tell me that he had seen one, I should be- 
lieve him. But all the men in the world could not convince 
me that three times two are seven. Whoever asserts the 
proposition with an air of conviction succeeds only in 
demonstrating to me that he is a fool. Why is it that I 
could so easily be made to believe in the existence of white 
crows when no amount of evidence could convince me that 
three times two make seven ? It is because the proposition, 
All crows are black, is an induction based on particular ob- 
servations, a generalization from particular facts, while the 
proposition, Three times two make six, is the expression of 
intuitive insight. The particular gi'oups of threes and twos 
in connection with which I first apprehended this truth were 
the occasion, not the source, of my belief in it. To hold 
that the same relation exists between those groups of threes 
and twos and the truth which I cognized in connection with 
them, as obtains between my observation of individual cases 
and the opinion which I base upon it, is utterly to misrepre- 
sent the operations of the mind. And precisely this is done 
when the observation of groups of threes and twos and the 
observation of individual cases are both called presentation, 
and the insight occasioned by the former and the inference 
based upon the latter are both called generalizations. 
Better a thousand times to leave the teacher to the guidance 
of his own native common-sense than have him try to 
make himself believe that there is no essential difference 
between his intuitions in arithmetic and the generalizations 
of induction. 

If this reasoning is sound, it is evident that the first two 
of the Herbartian steps disappear in the teaching of arith- 
metic, and that arithmetical study consists entirely in the 
application of axioms to particular cases — problems ; the, 



!2o6 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

latter, so far from furnishing the material which is to end 
in a generalization, being nothing but individual instances 
presenting questions that are to be determined by general 
principles already known. How true this is will be evident 
when we reflect upon the steps taken by the teacher to make 
a pupil see the incorrectness of an arithmetical solution. 
He does not help him to make an induction that he has 
not made before, or to see more clearly the significance and 
scope of one that he has already made. No ; his entire 
attention is concentrated on making the pupil see that he 
has applied an arithmetical truth not appropriate to the 
particular case. 

(4) In Connection with Literature If now we turn to 

the study of literature we find that still other mental pro- 
cesses are involved. Take the first stanza of Gray's Elegy : 

" The curfew tolls the knell of parting day; 
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea; 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me." 

Is the student to treat this as mere matter for the under- 
standing, to be treasured up in memory .■* Is he to note 
the fact that a little after sunset the curfew tolled, and the 
lowing kine came slowly over the meadow, and the tired 
ploughman went home ? Of course not. Taken apart 
from the rest of the poem, its whole value consists in the 
effect it produces on the emotional nature, and the condi- 
tion of this effect is its realization by the imagination. 
The pupil must see in his mind's eye the gathering dark- 
ness, the herd as it winds over the meadow, and the weary 
ploughman wending his way homeward, and hear in imagi- 
nation the tolling of the curfew and the lowing of the 



THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 207 

cattle. To what end ? In order that he may appreciate 
the beauty of the picture. If he faithfully reproduces in 
his imagination the thought of the poet, and if he feels 
that it was beautiful, the stanza has produced its proper 
effect upon his mind. 

Now of course there were two steps involved : the pro- 
cess of imagination and the perception of beauty. But to 
undertake to express these in the form of a syllogism 
would be absurd. A syllogism is a complete statement of 
an act of reasoning, and there is no reasoning involved 
either in the exercise of the imagination or in the percep- 
tion of beauty. The science of aesthetics may perhaps be 
able to tell us why Gray's Elegy is beautiful. But we do 
not find the poem beautiful because that science has for- 
mulated such and such laws ; on the contrary, the science 
is what it is because we find the poem beautiful. The 
normal mind, in other words, dictates to the science of 
aesthetics, instead of being subject to it. 

Summary of Conclusions Relating to the Action of the 
Mind in Connection with Grammar, History, Arithmetic, 
and Literature. — Summing up our conclusions, we find 
that the first step in grammatical analysis is conception ; in 
historical explanation, an induction ; in arithmetic, the in- 
tuitive perception of an axiom ; in literature, an act of the 
imagination. As the second step in grammatical analysis, 
we have deductive reasoning ; in historical explanation, a 
particular sort of inductive reasoning ; in arithmetic, de- 
ductive reasoning ; in literature, a certain response of the 
emotional nature. We perceive also that in grammatical 
analysis this second step is an application of a principle 
learned in the study of grammar ; in historical explanation, 



2o8 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

of a principle not derived from the study of history, but 
determined by common observation ; in arithmetic, of a 
principle acquired not through the process of induction, 
but through the mind's immediate perception ; and in liter- 
ature, that it is not the application of any principle whatever. 

Possible Defence of the Herbartian Theory — One might 
attempt to defend the procedure of the Herbartians by 
saying that there is a point of view from which all differ- 
ences disappear. When the Shah of Persia declined to 
witness the great English races on the ground that he 
already knew the result — that one or the other of the 
horses would win — he was abstracting from the difference 
between the individual horses, from all that made them in- 
teresting to their owners and the spectators, and regarding 
them simply as horses. Since as horses they wece all the 
same, what mattered which won .'' So, it might be said, 
there is always something — a fact of history, a poem, 
a problem in arithmetic, etc. — that stimulates the mind 
to action, and some activity — inductive reasoning, exercise 
of the imagination, etc. — to which the mind is stimulated. 
Why not, for the sake of simplicity, call the first presenta- 
tion and the second generalization ? To this the first re- 
ply is that a method is formulated for the sake of guidance. 
For example, if one wishes to buy or sell or drive a horse, 
it is not the qualities the animal has in common with 
horses in general that one needs to be informed about, but 
its individual peculiarities. In like manner, if a teacher is 
to help a pupil study a particular lesson, what she needs 
to know is the peculiar action of the mind in dealing with 
such a subject. And unless teaching is a purely mechanical 
process, the more clearly one apprehends the nature of 



THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 



•209 



the activity of which he wishes to supply the conditions, 
the better he can supply them. 

Three Processes not Usually Required. — Moreover, a 
careful study of the conclusions we have reached makes 
it evident that in most of the cases examined there are 
really not three processes to which the terms presentation, 
generalization, and application can be applied. The teach- 
ing of grammar is indeed intended to enable the pupil to 
take three steps to which those names can be given. But 
in history and arithmetic there is but one, and in litera- 
ture there are but two such processes. For explanation 
in history, and the solution of a problem in arithmetic, as 
we have seen, consist of the application of what the stu- 
dent already knows. As grammatical analysis corresponds 
to one .only of the Herbartian steps — application — so 
also does reasoning in history and arithmetic ; while in 
literature the mental activities involved are imagination 
and the perception of the beautiful. 

How Psychology may Help the Teacher. — A study of 
the history of education makes one more than doubt 
whether there is not a large measure of truth in Professor 
Munsterberg's contention that we are disposed nowadays 
to lay undue stress on the relation between psychology as 
a science, and education. When we remember the pro- 
found conception which Plato and Comenius had of the 
philosophy of education, each of them living ages before 
there was anything that deserved to be called a science of 
psychology, it is difficult not to believe that the most im- 
portant knowledge of the mind which the teacher can 
acquire is that which a thoughtful observer of his own 



2IO A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

mental states can obtain. However this may be, surely 
nothing but confusion can result from an analysis which, 
in the supposed interest of simplicity, tends to blur the 
peculiar features of individual activities. In all teaching 
there is some material upon which we wish the mind of the 
pupil to act, and, conversely, some kind of action which 
we wish the apprehension of that material to occasion. 
That study of psychology is helpful which enables the 
teacher to determine most clearly just what mental activi- 
ties are to be aroused in the pupil and how this is to be 
accomplished. 

Without doubt the doctrine of General Method has 
done some service in emphasizing the fact that unless 
the acquisitions of the pupil are worked over, unless they 
occasion some sort of mental activity, they are without 
value. But even this service has not been without its 
drawbacks ; for it has helped to intensify the wide-spread 
belief that education is an affair of the intellect alone. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is meant by General Method? 

2. State and illustrate what is meant by preparation, presenta- 
tion, generalization, and application. 

3. Define method-whole. 

4. Upon what does the validity of methods depend ? 

5. State clearly what the mind does when a sentence in grammar 
is analyzed. 

6. To which of the Herbartian steps does it correspond, and why ? 

7. What are the acts of the mind of the pupil who is studying 
history ? 

8. In what does historical explanation consist? 

9. To which of the Herbartian steps does historical explanation 
correspond ? 

10. Point out the difference between the activities of the student 
in connection with grammar, and those in connection with history. 



THE FETICH OF GENERAL METHOD. 211 

11. Describe the mental processes involved in the solution of a 
problem in arithmetic. 

12. What is the difference between the source of your belief in the 
proposition, All crows are black ; and that of your belief that two and 
two make four ? 

13. How does a teacher help his pupil to see that he has made a 
mistake in solving a problem in arithmetic? 

14. Describe the action of the mind in connection with the study 
of arithmetic. 

15. Sum up the conclusions reached relating to the action of the 
mind in connection with grammar, history, arithmetic, and literature. 

16. How may the Herbartian theory be defended ? 

17. Is the defence valueless.'' If so, why ? 

18. What sort of psychology is helpful to the teacher ? 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. May a given le.s.son — say in history — contain one method- 
whole for pupils of a given grade, and more for those farther ad- 
vanced ? 

2. What law of the mind makes preparation helpful? 

3. How can you learn through observation what motives in- 
fluence people ? 

4. Do you always know what motives influence your own actions ? 

5. What is an hypothesis? How does it differ from a theory ? 

6. Give examples to show that all inductive reasoning consists of 
a process of finding hypotheses to explain facts. 

7. What else do you know in the same way in which you know 
the axioms of mathematics ? 

8. Are these axioms examples of necessary truths or necessary 
beliefs? 

9. Study carefully the whole of Gray's Elegy, and describe in 
detail what your mind does as you study it. 

10. What effect will this attempt at analysis have upon your 
enjoyment of the poem? 

11. What habit is cultivated by applying the same term, for 
example, generalization, to widely different things? 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL CURRICULUM. 

Difficulty of Mapping Out the Work Through the Grades. 

— In one of the preceding chapters we undertook to lay 
out the work of the chikl in the primary grades. That 
attempt ought logically to be followed by an effort to map 
out his work through all the grades. But the science of 
the growing mind is too much in its infancy to permit any- 
thing beyond more or less happy conjectures as to the 
amount of work that can be wisely undertaken by the aver- 
age child during the various periods of his school life, and 
as to the time when various kinds of work can be most 
economically done by him. And we are certainly as much 
in the dark as to the maximum of work which we may 
exact of the very bright pupil, and the minimum that we 
ought to require of the very dull one. For every human 
being in pursuit of education must traverse the course in 
his own way. We teach our pupils in classes. But no 
two pupils think the same thoughts, experience the same 
emotions, or put forth the same effort in studying a lesson. 
Some master it with ease, others comprehend most of it 
after a good deal of labor, while to others still it is a 
puzzle which they are quite incapable of solving. Suppose 
that prior to the invention of the steam-engine a hundred 
men had started from the Atlantic to the Pacific, each 
one bent on reaching his destination as soon as might be. 
It goes without saying that only the hardiest and most per- 



THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL CURRICULUM. 21 J 

sistent among them would have arrived there at all ; that 
those who succeeded would have made the journey with 
varying rates of speed, and that those who failed would 
have given up at different points along the way. Nowadays 
mechanical means enable the puniest infant to cross the 
continent as readily as the strongest man. But there is no 
royal road to education. The mind must depend upon its 
own powers. And though the teacher may tell his pupil 
where the ascents are easiest and the waters most shallow, 
the mountains must be climbed and the rivers forded by 
the pupil himself : there is no other way. 

Kind of Work to be Done. — But because we cannot say 
how much work should be required of the average pupil, 
or what particular work he is best fitted to do at a given age, 
it does not follow that we may not reach sound conclusions 
as to the kind of work we ought to have him undertake. 
He must, of course, learn the three R's with more or less 
thoroughness. But experience has shown that the best way 
to give a child facility in reading is to have him read some- 
thing that he cares about for its own sake ; and it has 
shown with equal clearness that the time spent in teaching 
writing and arithmetic may be very much shortened. We 
may, then, fairly assume that the work upon which the 
school formerly concentrated its entire attention may be 
as well or better done incidentally ; that instead of keep- 
ing — or rather trying to keep — the child employed with 
the wearisome tasks of learning to read, write, and 
"reckon," apart from anything he has any interest in, we 
can teach him these arts quite as rapidly by teaching them 
in connection with things which it is important for him to 
learn. What are these things ? 



214 ^ BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

History and Literature. — In the first place, the work in 
history and literature, which should begin in his first year 
at school, should continue through all the grades. Reserv- 
ing for a separate chapter the discussion of the educational 
value of those subjects, it sufifices here to point out that 
it is from them that the child derives all that the school 
teaches him about man. Regarded simply from the point 
of view of its utility, such knowledge will bear favorable 
comparison with that of any other subject. For we all 
live in society, come in daily contact with men and women, 
wise dealing with whom depends upon a knowledge of 
human nature. And when we remember how the cultiva- 
tion of sympathy and charity, and the formation of right 
ideals, are dependent upon a knowledge of human nature, 
and how all these objects, along with a taste for good read- 
ing, are promoted by the study of literature, we begin to 
see how necessary it is that the child's knowledge of the 
lives and thoughts of men should be constantly enlarging 
all through the grammar- and, I may add, the high-school 
course. 

Boston, French, and Old Athenian Schools Compared. — 

President Eliot made a very instructive comparison some 
years ago between the programme of the first three years 
of the Boston grammar schools (supplemented by the com- 
plete course of the Boston Latin School) and that of the 
French secondary schools. He found that the French 
lycee begins the teaching of history (in the form of biog- 
raphy) when the pupil is eight years old, while the Boston 
school postpones it until the pupil is eleven. If he had 
compared the programme of the Boston school with that 
of the elementary school of Athens in the time of Socrates, 



THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL CURRICULUM. 21 5 

he would have found materials for an equally suggestive 
study. With the exception of an hour a week in music, 
the Boston school devotes the entire time of its pupils 
during the first three years to the study of various phases 
of external nature — elementary science, geography, arith- 
metic, science lessons as a part of the work in English — 
while the Athenian school reversed this, since it required 
its pupils to devote practically all of the time spent on 
study to literature. No one would say that the Athenian 
plan is worthy of imitation. But just as little can the Bos- 
ton plan be considered wise. If it is wrong not to make 
the child acquainted with such facts of nature as can be 
brought within the range of his comprehension and his 
interests, is it not equally wrong not to make him 
acquainted with such thoughts of the great men of the 
world, and such facts in their lives, as will enlarge his 
knowledge of human nature, quicken his emotions, and 
ennoble his ideals .'' If we remember that it is reflection 
upon men, so far as the studies of the school are con- 
cerned — upon the lives of struggling human beings — 
that helps us to see what is worthy of our admiration and 
love, we shall begin to wonder, if blind imitation of either 
model were the alternative, whether the Athenian model 
is not more worthy of imitation than that of the Boston 
school. 

The Amount of Reading Required by Massachusetts 
Schools. — From another point of view this comparison of 
the Athenian school with a typical American school may 
be made to indicate even more suggestive conclusions. 
President Eliot made a careful study of an "average 
Massachusetts grammar school." Some of his results had 



2l6 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

better be stated in his own language : " I turned next to 
an examination of the quantity of work done, . . . and, first, 
of the amount of reading. The amount of time given to 
reading and the study of the English language through the 
spelling-book and the little grammar which are used in 
that school, and through a variety of other aids to the 
learning of English, is thirty-seven per cent of all school 
time during six years. But what is the amount of reading 
in this time ? I procured two careful estimates of the time 
it would take a graduate of a high school to read aloud 
consecutively all the books which are read in this school 
during six years, including the history, the reading lessons in 
geography, and the book on manners. The estimates were 
made by two persons reading aloud at a moderate rate, 
and reading everything that the children in most of the 
rooms of that school have been supposed to read during 
their entire course of six years. The time occupied in 
doing this reading was forty-six hours. ... It took one 
and a half hours to read aloud the whole of one of the 
earlier readers " ! 

No critic of old Greek education has left behind him the 
results of such a study as this. But we have reason to 
believe that when the Athenian boy of sixteen left school 
he had an intimate acquaintance with the great poets of 
Greece, especially Homer and Hesiod, large portions of 
whose works he had learned by heart. 

Arithmetic. — The amount of time usually given to the 
study of arithmetic should be much curtailed. President 
Eliot found that the Boston boy is required to study arith- 
metic three hours to every one that the French boy is 
required to study the same subject. American schools 



THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL CURRICULUM. 217 

are still under the influence of the notion that the study of 
arithmetic is especially valuable because of its cultivation 
of the reasoning powers. I have attempted elsewhere to 
show that there is no such thing as a general cultivation 
of the power to reason ; that facility in reasoning gained in 
connection with any particular subject is helpful in reason- 
ing on similar subjects, and that its helpfulness decreases 
as subjects become more and more dissimilar, until it finally 
disappears altogether. It follows from this that the culti- 
vation of the reasoning power gained from the study of 
arithmetic is useful in the study of all other branches of 
mathematics, and in the study of those subjects, such as 
physics and astronomy, in which the quantitative relations 
of the facts are an important element, but that in the study 
of such subjects as history, literature, and psychology it 
is of little or no value. It is more than doubtful, for ex- 
ample, whether the severe study of arithmetic would make 
any material difference in a man's capacity, as a juryman, 
to draw sound conclusions from a tangled mass of evidence, 
or, as a citizen, to trace admitted governmental evils to 
their source. His training in arithmetic has only taught 
him how to apply self-evident principles to their proper 
cases ; his work as a juror demands the careful weighing 
of doubtful evidence, and the rigid exclusion of all influ- 
ences that might arise from prejudice, sympathy, and the 
like. Facility in the one kind of reasoning is no more a 
guaranty of facihty in the other than is proficiency in play- 
ing golf of proficiency in pla3'ing chess. 

The primary purpose, then, of the study of arithmetic is 
the ability to determine the quantitative relations of facts 
not only in connection with business, but with all the facts 
of that description with which the mind has to do. To 



21 8 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

this end, a knowledge of the four fundamental rules, of 
simple and decimal fractions, of the simple applications of 
percentage, of simple interest and discount, with a few 
of the simple rules of mensuration, will suffice.^ 

Political Geography. — Much of the time spent in the 
study of political geography should be given to a different 
phase of the subject from that which generally receives 
the lion's share of attention. The centre of gravity should 
be shifted. Instead of learning about places primarily and 
people incidentally, the important matter should be the 
people of a country, the country itself only receiving atten- 
tion as it throws light on the people. Many gray-haired 
men to-day are unable to recall without a feeling of exas- 
peration their having been required as boys to learn that 
Dover, the capital of Delaware, is situated on Jones's 
Creek ! As though, in the first place, it made any differ- 
ence in what town the legislature of the State met, and, in 
the second, on what creek it was situated. That sort of 
knowledge, like the knowledge of the boundaries of our 
States, has no intrinsic importance. No one is wiser or 
more capable through knowing them. We need to know 

1 Dr. Wm. H. Maxwell has made some suggestive remarks about arith- 
metic which deserve to be quoted at length : " There is probably more 
time wasted in the teaching of arithmetic than in the teaching of any other 
subject. Long problems are given instead of short ; intricate ones instead 
of simple ; things unlike the operations of actual life instead of what is 
practical. Children are burdened with dreadful 'examples' for 'home 
work ' which, if solved at all, are solved by the aid of parents or older 
brothers and sisters. Time is consumed in work which children cannot 
possibly understand or appreciate. The most widely used arithmetics are 
attempts to present the arithmetical operations supposed to be involved in 
every line of human activity, commercial, monetary, and manufacturing. 
Time was when it was considered sufficient to learn by rote definitions 



THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL CURRICULUM. 219 

in what part of the country a given State is — whether it 
is in New England, or is one of the Middle, or Southern, 
or Middle Western, or Pacific Slope States. But no very 
important purpose is served by attempting to carry in the 
mind such knowledge as the detailed boundaries and the 
capitals of the various States. It is a sort of knowledge 
which every one except the teacher of geography will for- 
get, leaving no trace behind except an irritating recollec- 
tion of misspent time. 

Nature Study. — That first-hand study of nature — 
study by means of " demonstrations and practical exer- 
cises rather than from books," including botany, zoology, 
geology, and physical geography in the earlier, and ele- 

of technical terms employed, to memorize a rule without understanding its 
reasons, and to apply it to the solution of problems precisely worded. 
When the rule was forgotten, or the problem differently worded, the power 
of solution was obliterated. But no matter ; unreasonable work of this 
kind was thought in some inexplicable way to train the reasoning powers; 
the child was supposed to learn to think by a process that required no 
thinking. The doctrine of apperception has changed all our ideas on this 
matter. . . . 

" If the presence in the pupil's mind of an experience necessary to inter- 
pret the new facts, and utility in practical life, are to be taken as criteria, 
the following topics may not only with safety, but with positive benefit, be 
eliminated from the grammar-school course ; cube-root, equation of pay- 
ments, compound proportion, partnership, exchange, true discount, partial 
payments, bonds and stocks, and the greater part of what goes by the name 
of mensuration. If, in addition to this wholesale elimination, useless tables 
and parts of tables were dropped ; if properties of numbers, factoring, can- 
cellation, least common multiple, and greatest common divisor were taught 
incidentally, as they are needed, in connection with fractions, much time 
that now goes to waste would be saved. Cities that now give twenty-five 
per cent of the whole time of school to the teaching of arithmetic might 
vnth advantage cut that amount down by at least one half." (Educational 
Review, Vol. III. pp. 475-477.) 



220 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

mentary physics in the later, years of the course — should 
continue all through the grades, is an inevitable inference 
from conclusions already reached. Obedience to the laws 
of nature forms a large part of the rational living which 
it is the object of education to prepare us for. Now in 
order to obey these laws we must know them so thoroughly 
as to realize that no one can violate them without suffering 
the consequences. That sort of knowledge can only be 
got by an experimental study of the subject. 

Electives. — I believe also that a foreign language — 
French or German preferably — and algebra and geometry 
should be offered as electives in the grammar school : the 
former to pupils of eleven or younger, and the latter to 
boys and girls of thirteen or fourteen. I cannot agree 
with the Committee of Ten in thinKmg that the grammar- 
school students should study the same subjects whether 
they intend to go to college or not. That the child of ten 
or eleven can learn French or German with as much 
facility as at any later period of his life may fairly be 
regarded as an established fact. If he is to go on to the 
high school and college, it seems clear that it would be an 
economical use of his time to begin the study of a foreign 
language at that age. But if he is not to go beyond the 
grammar school, it would seem unwise to require him to 
lay the foundation of a structure that he is almost certain 
never to complete. Few thoughtful persons would say 
that the leisure hours of a workingman would be most 
wisely spent in the slow and laborious reading of French 
or German books. If his tastes are sufficiently intellectual 
to make that possible, it would be much easier to develop 
in him such an interest in literature or science or history 



THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL CURRICULUM. 22 1 

as will enable him to use his spare time in a more profitable 
way. 

Similar considerations justify the belief that the student 
who intends to go on to the high school should be encour- 
aged — perhaps required — to elect geometry and algebra 
in the later years of his course. Experience has shown 
that many grammar-school students have the capacity to 
understand the more elementary phases of these subjects, 
and the relation of the latter to the work of the high 
school makes it desirable that they should be taken up in 
the grammar grades by those who intend to get a high- 
school education. 

Language and Grammar. — The work in language and 
grammar ought to be incidental to the other work of the 
school, particularly history and literature. Such instruc- 
tion in grammar as the student needs in his language work 
can easily be given in incidental oral lessons. The sys- 
tematic study of technical grammar should be postponed to 
the high school, since that subject deals with conceptions 
quite beyond the grasp of the average grammar-school 
pupil. 

Elements of a Liberal Education from the Start. — 

Such, if we consult reason rather than tradition, would 
seem to be the character of a course of study which aims 
to give the elements of a liberal education from the start. 
For we need clearly to understand that the difference be- 
tween the proposed and the traditional course is precisely 
this : the one never loses sight of the fact that the pupil is 
to be trained all through the grades for the noblest pur- 
poses of life ; the other treats him primarily as a tool which 



Ill A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

is to be sharpened for its work by being qualified to do 
mechanical tasks more or less, and does not even do this 
intelligently. As Dr. Maxwell puts it in the article already 
quoted from : " The existing course is chiefly a memory 
course. It consumes the most plastic years of life in the 
futile attempt to memorize the spelling of thousands of 
words that find no place in the pupil's vocabulary ; to 
memorize innumerable details in geography that are of no 
practical value ; ... to memorize rules and processes in 
arithmetic that he will never use, and the reasons of which 
are beyond his 'ken'; and to memorize the Constitution of 
the United States before he is capable of giving it a liberal 
interpretation. The proposed plan, on the other hand, 
would confine the study of subjects now in the curriculum 
to what is well within the mental grasp of children, and 
utilize the time thus gained by the introduction of studies, 
such as elementary algebra, inventional geometry, elemen- 
tary experimental physics, and a modern language. After 
such a course the average public-school pupil would not 
only ktiow what he has learned — something that cannot 
now be said of him with truth — but he would have begun 
to acquire the knowledges and to develop the powers that 
mark the liberally educated man." ^ 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. Why is it impossible to map out definitely the work all through 
the grades? 

2. Why should history and literature be taught through all the 
grades ? 

3. In what particular is a comparison of Boston and French and 
old Athenian schools suggestive? 

1 Educational Review, Vol. III. p- 480. 



THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL CURRICULUM. 



223 



4. How much reading is required by an average Massachusetts 
grammar school ? 

5. Why do American schools give so much time to the study of 
arithmetic ? 

6. Is the reason sound ? 

7. What is the primary purpose of the study of arithmetic ? 

8. " The centre of gravity " in the teaching of political geography 
" should be shifted. " Explain. 

9. What is meant by "first-hand study of nature"? 

10. Why should it go on all through the grades ? 

11. What electives should be offered in the grammar school, and 
why? 

12. In what way may the elements of a liberal education be given 
from the start? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Is it precisely true that there is no royal road to education? 

2. Has the case of Abraham Lincoln any bearing on this point? 

3. Do you believe that the elements of a liberal education may be 
given from the first day a child enters school? 

4. Do you think that grammar-school pupils should be required 
to study the same subjects whether they are going to college or not? 

5. What does Dr. Maxwell mean by the "neat, plastic years of 
life"? 

6. What are the " knowledges " and the " powers " that mark the 
liberally educated man? 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM OF PUBLIC- 
SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION. 

Man and Nature the Central Subjects. — It will probably 
be objected that the work suggested in the preceding 
chapter cannot be accomplished. The reply to this is that 
no definite amount of work has been proposed. The 
contention is that man and nature should be the central 
subjects of study from the time the child begins his school 
life until he leaves the grammar school. How much 
history and literature, how much botany, zoology, geology, 
geography, and physics the average pupil can learn no one 
can yet say. But it does appear indubitable that these 
ought to be the central subjects of study ; that instead of 
treating grammar and arithmetic and language lessons and 
spelling as the primarily important matters, the world, 
the human race, with members of which he must come 
in daily contact, should receive the greater part of his 
attention. 

But we cannot form an intelligent opinion as to how 
much work can be done in the grammar school until we 
make persistent and intelligent efforts to give our pupils 
an opportunity to do the work they are fitted to do. As 
long as we deal with an abstraction called " the average 
pupil," until we concentrate our attention on individual 
boys and girls in order that we may adapt their work to 
their needs and capabilities, until we realize that it is as 

224 



THE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM. 225 

absurd to confine the mind of one boy to a thin diet 
because the mind of another can assimilate nothing more 
substantial, as it would be to feed a healthy boy on gruel 
because his sick brother requires that sort of food, we 
ought to know that we have no right to talk about what 
the grammar school can do. I believe that President 
Eliot uttered a profound truth when he remarked that " to 
discriminate between pupils of different capacity, to select 
the competent for suitable instruction, and to advance each 
pupil with appropriate rapidity, will ultimately become the 
most important functions of the public-school administra- 
tor — those functions in which he or she will be most 
serviceable to families and to the state." 

Need of Adapting Work to Individual Students. — Why 

serviceable to families .-* Because the fathers and mothers 
of our children, dull as well as bright, are deeply interested 
in having the work of their boys and girls adapted to their 
capabilities. When that is not done, injury results to the 
dull boy by being burdened with more than he can carry, 
and to the bright boy by being held back for the sake of 
his slower classmates. 

Why serviceable to the state .■* Because the state, and a 
democratic state most of all, has a vital concern in the 
proper education of its citizens. 

Why the Integrity of the College is Threatened. — The 

integrity of the American college is very seriously threat- 
ened because our school superintendents have not yet gen- 
erally reaUzed their obligation to promote bright pupils to 
a higher grade as soon as these are capable of doing the 
work of that grade. Because this is not done, our sons 



226 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

and daughters are often sixteen or seventeen before they 
enter the high school, and twenty-three or twenty-four when 
their student life at college ends. If they intend to enter 
one of the professions or fill any position which requires a 
technical knowledge of applied science, they must spend 
three years more in a professional school, so that they are 
at least twenty-six before they are ready to begin their life- 
work. Now it is only the well-to-do who can afford to 
prolong the education of their children to such an age. 
The sons and daughters of people in ordinary circumstances 
must, for their own sakes and for the sake of their parents, 
take up the burden of self-support at an earlier age. In 
order to meet this difficulty it has recently been proposed 
by President Butler to reduce the college course to two 
years for students who purpose taking a further course at 
a technical or professional school. In other words, he pro- 
poses to make the completion of a two- instead of a four- 
year college course the condition of admission to professional 
schools, in order that the graduates of those schools may 
engage in "the active and independent participation of the 
practical work in life " two years earlier than they are now 
able to do. 

President Hyde said not long ago that "nearly all the dis- 
tinguished alumni of Bowdoin College graduated at about 
the present average age of entrance, and were well launched 
on their professional careers at about the age at which our 
students now graduate." Among the cases which he cited 
were those of Jacob Abbott and William Pitt Fessenden, 
who were graduated before they were seventeen ; Long- 
fellow, who was through college at eighteen ; Franklin 
Pierce, John A. Andrew, Fordyce Barker, and Egbert 
Smyth, who had completed the course at nineteen ; and 



THE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM. 



227 



William P. Frye and Melville W. Fuller, graduated at 
twenty.^ 

Does any one seriously doubt that a Longfellow could 
to-day complete an eight-year grammar-school course in 
five years ? Or that he could finish the four-year second- 
ary and the four-year college course in seven more ? Prob- 
ably every one of the men mentioned by President Hyde 
could have done so rapidly the work now prescribed by the 
grammar and high schools as to enter college almost as 
soon as he actually did. President Eliot cites a grammar- 
school principal who testified that nearly one quarter of 
the pupils in his school of about six hundred and fifty chil- 
dren were doing two years' work in one.^ Few thoughtful 
persons would say that American society ought to encour- 
age even one fourth of our grammar-school pupils to look 
forward to a college education. It is only a small minority, 
composed of conspicuously capable pupils, who can benefit 
either themselves or society by endeavoring to acquire 
that thorough and severe training which the college is in- 
tended to give. The case, then, may be put as follows : 
the college course need not be shortened in order that 
really able students may finish their professional education 
fully three years earlier than they now can. But to 
shorten the course in order to enable mediocre men to 
complete their professional education and begin the practi- 
cal work of life earlier would be to encourage men to enter 
the professions who ought not to enter them at all. 

Responsibilities of the Learned Professions. — The reason 
for this statement will be evident if we consider "the 

1 ColTimbia University Bulletins of Information, No. i (1902), p. 39. 

2 Educational Reform, p. 254. 



aiS A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

responsibilities and opportunity of the learned professions." 
They were forcibly stated in a recent address made by 
President Eliot, as follows : " It is plain that the future 
prosperity and progress of modern communities is here- 
after going to depend much more than ever before on the 
large groups of highly trained men which constitute what 
are called the professions. The social and industrial 
powers, and the moral influences which strengthen and 
uplift modern society, are no longer in the hands of 
legislatures, or political parties, or public men. All these 
agencies are becoming secondary and subordinate influ- 
ences. They neither originate nor lead ; they sometimes 
regulate and set bounds, and often impede. The real 
incentives and motive powers which impel society forward 
and upward spring from those bodies of well-trained, alert, 
and progressive men known as the professions. They give 
effect to the discoveries or imaginings of genius. All the 
large businesses and new enterprises depend for their 
success on the advice and cooperation of the profes- 
sions." 

If this is true, if society is guided in its onward and 
upward march by the professions, then the qualifications 
which professional men ought to possess should be clearly 
determined. Positively, they needs must have that large- 
ness of vision, that soundness and soberness of judgment, 
without which they cannot exert a beneficent influence on 
society. Negatively, they ought not to be narrow special- 
ists however able, or men of mediocre abilities no matter 
how well trained. In endeavoring to ascertain the qualifi- 
cations of a man we are prone to content ourselves with 
one question when we ought to ask two. If a man has 
had the advantages of the best schools in this country and 



THE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM. 



229 



Europe, we are wont to assume that he is well equipped to 
undertake any work within his field. 

We ought to know that all that education can do is to 
make potential capacities actual, and that a student who 
brings to the school only mediocre potentialities can take 
away from it little more than mediocre powers. But, as 
has been said, mediocrity cannot acquire that breadth of 
view which the directing powers of society ought to have. 

This understood, the duty and the interest of American 
society are clear. It ought to employ every proper meas- 
ure to keep all but able men out of the professions. The 
fact, therefore, that existing educational conditions make 
it difficult for mediocre men to enter them is a strong 
argument for keeping those conditions as they are. The 
Utopia of the great philosophic dreamer was only a means 
of getting the directing powers of society into the hands of 
those best qualified to wield them. Society in America 
will work consciously and definitely towards that end when 
it strives to put the formation or modification of public 
opinion into the hands of those most fit to do it intelli- 
gently. We cannot, perhaps, keep incompetent men out 
of our State legislatures and the halls of Congress ; but if 
we can coerce them by a sound public opinion to do their 
duty, we shall not suffer greatly. 

Do Existing Conditions Discriminate Against the Poor ? — 

It may be said that existing educational arrangements prac- 
tically discriminate in favor of the rich against the poor ; 
that while the rich aspirant can afford to wait until he is 
twenty-six or twenty-seven before he enters a profession, 
the poor man cannot ; also that the poor man of mediocre 
abilities has as good a right to enter the professions as the 



230 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



rich man with no better qualifications. To this the reply 
is that in such a world as ours we must be content with 
approximations to ideal conditions. But it is not so clear 
as it may seem that the rich man is favored by being per- 
mitted to undertake work for which he is not fitted, or 
that it is a hardship to the poor man of mediocre talent 
to be debarred. The desirable thing is that every mem- 
ber of society shall do with all his might the work he is 
best fitted to do. Will any one venture the assertion that 
this is not also the way to live a happy life ? Louis XVI. 
of France would have made an excellent locksmith, but 
destiny in the form of unintelligent governmental machin- 
ery imposed upon him a task for which he was utterly 
unfitted, and the result was a short and unhappy life sum- 
marily ended by the guillotine. 

Injury to all Grades of Schools Through Disregard of the 
Unequal Capacities of Pupils. — It cannot be too emphati- 
cally proclaimed, then, that a system of promotion which dis- 
regards the unequal capacities of pupils, or only takes note 
of them by compelling the duller and less industrious pupils 
to perform a second time the work of an entire grade, not 
only strikes at society through the colleges and universities, 
but through the schools all along the line. Dr. Maxwell 
has forcibly and succinctly stated the case as follows: " On 
account of this system of retardation, fewer children reach 
the higher grades, fewer youths reach the high schools, 
fewer young men reach the universities, the professional 
schools are filled with students of grossly defective schol- 
arship, and the learned professions are choked up with men 
of inferior education and training." ^ 

1 Educational Review, Vol. III. p. 474. 



THE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM, 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEX' 



231 



1, What is the most important problem of public-school adminis- 
tration ? 

2. In what way would adapting work to individual students 
promote the interest of families and the state? 

3. How and why is the integrity of the American college 
threatened ? 

4. Show that the college course need not be shortened to make it 
possible for able students to finish their professional education three 
years earlier than they now do. 

5. What is President Eliot's opinion as to the responsibilities of 
the learned professions ? 

6. How does that affect the argument for shortening the course of 
the American college ? 

7. What two questions ought we to ask where we are endeavoring 
to ascertain a man's qualifications? 

8. Show that existing educational conditions do not discriminate 
against the poor. 

9. Show that disregard of the unequal capacities of pupils inflicts 
injury upon the college and university as well as upon schools of a 
lower grade. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Do you accept the conclusion of this chapter? 

2. Why do so few superintendents attempt to promote their pupils 
as fast as they can do the work of the higher grade ? 

3. Do our conclusions in relation to imitation throw any light on 
the desirability of forming a sound public opinion ? 

4. Whom does the text mean by "the great philosophic dreamer"? 

5. How would you determine success in life — by the positions 
a man fills, or by the thoroughness and completeness with which he 
does what he undertakes ? 



CHAPTER XXI. 

DEPARTMENTAL INSTRUCTION IN THE GRAMMAR 
SCHOOL. 

Proposed Transformation Objected to as Impracticable. — 

An earlier chapter has insisted that the course of study 
in the grammar school should be arranged with a view to 
providing the elements of a liberal education, and that there- 
fore it should be transformed by making man and nature 
the central subject of study. But the practical schoolman 
objects that this cannot be done ; that the teacher is 
already overworked ; that the proposed transformation, 
laying emphasis as it does upon content rather than form, 
would require not only detailed knowledge of a great vari- 
ety of subjects, but special preparation to teach them, and 
that this, under existing conditions, would be impossible. 

Is the Existing System Sacred?^ This may be freely 
granted. As Dr. Maxwell puts it : " Under the existing 
system it is not possible to lay any greater burden on the 
shoulders of either teacher or pupil than they are now 
called upon to bear. Each teacher teaches a little bit of 
each of the subjects — often as many as eight or ten — 
assigned to her grade. Each pupil learns a little bit of the 
eight or ten subjects. ... To introduce new subjects 
would increase the burden intolerably. The introduction 
of new subjects under existing conditions is out of the 
question," 

232 



DEPARTMENTAL INSTRUCTION. 233 

But if the proposed course is demanded by the best 
interests of the pupil — if it proposes to treat him as a 
human being with capacities that are to be developed and 
freed for the highest uses of humanity ; if it looks upon 
him as having powers that may be so trained as to make 
his nature an addition to the things that make the world 
worth while — instead of weakly abandoning this proposed 
course without more ado because existing conditions make 
its introduction impossible, we are bound to raise the ques- 
tion whether there is any reason in the nature of the case 
why a single teacher should continue to teach her pupils 
all the subjects assigned to them in her grade ; whether 
the existing system is so sacred that to lay hands upon it 
would be sacrilegious. 

The Grammar and the High School Compared. — Teach- 
ing in the high school is done by specialists. Under the 
existing system the student leaves the grammar school in 
which a single teacher has taught him all the subjects he 
has studied in a particular grade, to enter a school in 
which he may have as many different teachers as he has 
studies. Upon what ground can this abrupt change be jus- 
tified ? What constitutes the line that separates the gram- 
mar school from the high school, a Rubicon the crossing 
of which portends such fundamental changes in the nature 
of the educational influences that are brought to bear upon 
the student ? The more this question is considered the 
more unanswerable will it seem. Either our method in 
the high school is right and that in the upper grades of 
the grammar school wrong, or the latter is right and the 
former wrong. If specialists to teach history and litera- 
ture and natural science and mathematics are needed in 



234 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



the high school, it would be difficult to show why not in 
the upper grades of the grammar school. If they are not 
required in the latter, it would be difficult to explain why 
they are to be deemed necessary in the high school. 

Why Specialists are not Needed Through All the 
Grades. — It may be urged that this argument proves too 
much ; that the same reasoning might be used to prove 
that we should have specialists in all the grades because 
we have them in the high school. This objection will not 
bear examination from the point of view of those who ac- 
cept the conclusions of a preceding chapter of this book.^ 
It was there pointed out that while in the first years of a 
child's school life concentration should be the rule, every 
one admits that at some point in his education specializa- 
tion must begin ; and it was argued that specialization — 
the study of facts in their logical relations — should begin 
when his intellect "is sufficiently developed to enable him 
to rethink systematic, connected thoughts, and when his 
interest in such activity is sufficiently great to enable him 
to perform it without unduly taxing the will." 

Now those who admit this will certainly not deny that 
the transition from a system in which concentration {the 
consideration of facts from the point of view of the principle 
of mechanical association) is the rule to a system in which 
specialization (the consideration of facts from the point of 
view of logical association) is the rule, marks an epoch in 
the child's educational history. This transition denotes a 
psychological era in the child's development ; that from the 
grammar school to the high school does not. Therefore 
no psychological reason exists why there should be any 
1 Chapter XVII, 



DEPARTMENTAL INSTRUCTION. 



^35 



difference between the mode in which the work is done in 
the high school and that in which it is done in the upper 
grades of the grammar school ; there is a reason for making 
a distinction between the method employed in the primary 
grades and that adopted in the upper grades of the grammar 
school. Those, therefore, who defend the existing system 
ought to be able to prove that the psychological epoch from 
which dates the transition from the system of concentration 
to that of specialization is found in the average pupil at the 
close of the grammar-school period — that specialization 
should be deferred to the high school. Now, although a 
few enthusiasts seem to have convinced themselves that 
this is true, their position is not supported by actual con- 
ditions. Will any practical teacher deny that children 
ought to begin the study of the facts of arithmetic, history, 
geometry, algebra, botany, and physics in their logical 
relations somewhere during the grammar-school course .-' 
If not, we find a point in the grammar school where the 
same principle begins to obtain which has universal sway in 
the high school — where begins the systematic study of 
facts or phases of the universe in their logical relations, 
the study of subjects. If, therefore, it is wise to have a 
teacher of a single subject or a group of closely related 
subjects in the high school, it is difficult to see why it 
would not be equally wise to have them in all the grades 
of the grammar school except those in which the work is 
done in accordance with the principle of concentration. 

When the Study of Facts in their Logical Relations should 
Begin. — Dr. Maxwell thinks that the period when the 
study of facts in their logical relations should begin is 
reached by the average child about the twelfth year. 



236 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

" From the sixth year to about the tenth or eleventh," he 
says, "the child is occupied in acquiring the arts necessary 
to the attainment of knowledge — reading, writing, and 
the elements of number — and in obtaining through obser- 
vation of natural objects " (and, I should add, through the 
study of history, in the form of biography, and of simple 
literature) "that experience of the world" (and of man) 
" which is necessary to the interpretation of more complex 
and general notions. During this period the knowledge 
acquired is necessarily loose and unsystematic," and the 
interest of the child grows out of the external, mechanical 
relations of the facts he studies rather than out of their 
inner, logical relations, and for that reason the principle of 
concentration should obtain. "About the beginning of the 
twelfth year, however, comes the time when it is necessary 
to systematize the facts learned. . . . This is the point at 
which specialization in teaching [and in study] should be- 
gin. The retardation of progress in public-school work is 
chiefly caused by this one thing — that specialization in 
the work of teaching is delayed until the child's fifteenth 
or sixteenth year instead of beginning at the eleventh or 
twelfth." 1 

Advantages of Specialization in Teaching Specializa- 
tion in the teaching of the upper grades of the grammar 
school would make it much easier to keep the work of a 
pupil adjusted to his needs and capacities in the way 
which was insisted on in the preceding chapter. If each 
of the staple subjects of instruction in the last three or 
four years of the grammar school were taught by a single 
teacher, it would be easy for an intelligent teacher to as- 

1 Educational Review, Vol. III. pp. 4S1, 482. 



DEPARTMENTAL INSTRUCTION. 237 

certain when a bright pupil could with advantage to him- 
self undertake the work of a higher grade. By means of 
reviews which would not be disadvantageous to the rest of 
the class she could make him acquainted with important 
matters which the class had gone over before he entered 
it. She would have perfect knowledge of the work of both 
classes, since both of them would have done it under her 
direction ; she would therefore be ideally qualified to sup- 
plement the pupil's knowledge in the higher class in those 
particulars in which this might be desirable. In a word, 
specialization in teaching would facilitate in two ways that 
promotion of the pupil which his interests demand : first, 
when the class from which and the one to which he might 
be promoted were taught by the same teacher, she would 
be in the best possible position to determine when such 
promotion was desirable ; secondly, knowing precisely what 
ground the higher class had traversed before he entered it, 
she would be able to meet his needs in the most intelligent 
way by classroom recapitulations and by suggestions as to 
outside reading. 

Objections to the Existing System The existing sys- 
tem is not only unfavorable to a proper method of promo- 
tion in these particulars ; it not only makes it impossible 
for the class teacher to have that knowledge of a pupil's 
capacity to do the work of a higher grade which a depart- 
mental teacher may have, and impossible for the pupil 
who is promoted before his class to have the work of the 
higher class properly adjusted to his needs : it interposes a 
powerful obstacle to a wise system of promotion in another 
way. To teach bright, eager, enthusiastic boys and girls 
is a real pleasure to the genuine teacher. Would it be a 



238 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

matter of wonder if, without admitting it to herself, she 
should be unwilling to lose this pleasure — if she should 
unconsciously overemphasize the importance of the work 
yet to be done when promotion of her best pupils to a 
higher class meant promotion to another teacher ? And 
it is worth while to notice that this motive would tend to 
operate most strongly with the best teachers — with the 
very class of teachers who under the departmental system 
would most earnestly desire to have their pupils so pro- 
moted as to keep them doing the most helpful work. 

The Existing System Requires Teachers to Teach Subjects 
in Which They are not Interested. — Another argument in 
favor of the proposed system is that the traditional system 
requires the teacher to teach subjects for which she has 
little taste or aptitude and of which her knowledge is very 
superficial. It is not uncommon for a teacher to have a 
genuine interest in the subjects pertaining to nature, or 
in those that pertain to man, but it is only the teacher 
with encyclopaedic knowledge and of varied talents who 
has a real interest in both of these great subdivisions of 
human knowledge. Now it is a great misfortune for chil- 
dren to be obliged to study a subject under a teacher who 
does not care for it. For apathy, like interest, is contagious, 
and it is almost impossible for even bright pupils to develop 
interest in a subject in which the teacher lacks interest. 

Moreover, a lack of interest implies superficial knowledge. 
The teacher who is not interested in history, for example, 
does not see the facts of the subject in their logical relations, 
does not see them in their relation to the life of the 
individual, the nation, and the race. They are, for her, 
dead, meaningless facts — facts that are " going nowhere 



DEPARTMENTAL INSTRUCTION. 239 

for nothing." She teaches them because she is required to, 
and the pupil learns them for the same reason. Teacher 
and pupil alike are heartily glad when they have finished 
the subject, only " finishing " it means for the former 
getting round to the point where she takes up the same 
monotonous "grind" again, and for the latter, the point 
where he is to take up similar " grinds " under the same kind 
of teacher. To suppose that work done under such con- 
ditions can be genuinely educative, that it can illuminate 
the mind, quicken the emotions, ennoble the ideals of the 
student, is absurd. There are two things which in the 
majority of cases such work may be counted on to accom- 
plish : add to the burden of meaningless facts which the 
pupil's memory is expected to carry, and intensify his 
long-ing: for the time when he shall have done with school. 
The specialization of teaching in the higher grades of the 
grammar school is urged, then, for the following reasons : 

1. It renders possible that enrichment of the course of 
study in the higher grades of the grammar school requisite 
to make the work there genuinely educative. 

2. It facilitates that promotion of a pupil which is made 
to depend primarily on his knowledge and capacity instead 
of on the calendar. 

3. It facilitates the plan by which teachers are required 
to teach only those subjects for which they have a decided 
bent and of which they have special knowledge. 

4. It enables the teacher to make specific and careful 
preparation for each day's work, so that her own rnind may 
be constantly growing and her own interest in her subject 
constantly deepening. 



240 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is meant by the title of this chapter? 

2. Show that the same argument which proves that specialists 
are desirable in the high school may be used to show that they are 
desirable in the upper grades of the grammar school. 

3. Why are specialists not needed all through the grades? 

4. What is meant by " the psychological epoch " which dates 
the transition from the system of concentration to that of special- 
ization ? 

5. Explain and illustrate what is meant by the study of facts in 
their logical relations. 

6. Enumerate the advantages of specialization in teaching. 

7. Specify the objections to the existing system. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Do you accept the conclusions of this chapter? 

2. Are there any obstacles in the way of introducing departmental 
instruction in the grammar-schools of your town ? 

3. What effect would departmental instruction in the grammar- 
school have on the training needed by teachers? 

4. Is that fact an argument for, or against, the proposed change? 

5. In German, French, and English schools of a corresponding 
grade is the instruction given by specialists? 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 

Educational Values and Methods. ^ — The preceding chapter 
incidentally discussed the methods that should be em- 
ployed in teaching various subjects. But in order that our 
knowledge of method may bear its proper fruit we ought 
to have definite ideas of the sort of benefits which the 
study of a subject may be expected to confer. To know 
no more of the educational value of history, literature, arith- 
metic, grammar, geography, and so on, than that they tend 
to "develop the mind" is to know little to the point. 
As the doctor needs to ascertain the precise effect the 
various drugs may be expected to have on the body, so we 
need to determine the precise effect the study of different 
subjects will have on the mind. We begin the discussion by 
attempting to determine the educational value of history. 

History (i) Increases One's Knowledge of Himself and His 
Fellows. — Among the benefits to be derived from the 
study of history may be mentioned the enlargement of 
one's knowledge of himself and of human nature. As a 
child becomes conscious of other people through becoming 
conscious of himself, so he is able to explain the actions of 
others only in so far as he can refer them to motives such 
as he has himself experienced. And this is as true of the 
men and women whom he comes to know in history as it 
is of those whom he meets in every-day life. What made 

241 



2^1 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



the Puritans leave their homes to brave the dangers of the 
sea and an unknown country ? What made men who 
cared so much for rehgious freedom so wilHng to deprive 
others of it ? These are questions relating to human 
nature, and if we are able to answer them, it is because we 
find something in ourselves which enables us to see that 
under similar circumstances we might have done the same 
thing. In like manner we should never be able to under- 
stand the civiUzation of China, its superstitious reverence 
for the past, its contemptuous rejection of everything that 
would imply a doubt of the perfect wisdom of antiquity, 
until we had made a study of our own lives and formed 
some idea of the influence which tradition exerts upon us. 
It may be said, with Froude, that " in history the outward 
fact is all that we can know, and that insight into the 
heart is impossible. ... It often is so. But when it is so 
no true history is possible."^ True history is the outward 
fact and the motive that lay behind it. 

The intelligent study of history, then, is a constant study 
of human nature, and the intelligent study of human nature 
is a persistent study of one's self. 

(2) Develops Sympathy and Charity. — Such a study 
of history tends to develop the capacity for intelligent 
sympathy and charity. It is worth a boy's while to 
learn that although Hamilton and Jefferson disliked each 
other intensely, each was devoted with his whole heart 
and soul to the well-being of the country, which he thought 
the policy of the other would ruin. It is worth his while 
to know that each of the two great generals of the Civil 
War was entirely clear that he was doing his duty, al- 
* Educational Review, Vol. V. p. 182. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HLSTORY. 



243 



though one was fighting to preserve the Union and the 
other to destroy it. Such things are worth his knowing 
not only because they afford opportunity for the exercise 
of that " theorizing activity " in which we have found one 
of the ends of life, but because they help him to a point of 
view from which he may look upon the lives of the men 
and women about him with sympathetic eyes, and perhaps 
in after-years be able to realize that a man may oppose 
him with passionate intensity and nevertheless be as honest 
as himself. 

(3) Makes us Realize that Nations, like Individuals, 
Must Act in Accordance with Moral Law. — It may be said 
that such teaching tends to develop that invertebrate, 
gelatinous sentimentalism which leads silly people to make 
a hero of any man accused of crime. But if history is 
properly taught it will furnish an effective antidote against 
any such tendency. No other subject affords such splendid 
opportunities for showing that not what we think to be 
true but what really is true is the important matter. He 
would be a narrow and unsympathetic student who did not 
believe in Calhoun's perfect sincerity. But the great Nul- 
lifier's honesty could not change the character of the moral 
laws by which this world is governed. Slavery is wrong. 
A country that permits it permits a violation of moral law, 
collides with one of the fundamental realities of the world. 
Just as two trains cannot come into collision without dis- 
aster, so a man or a nation cannot violate a moral law with 
impunity. To say that all you have to do is to think you 
are right, that your honesty of conviction will save you 
from any unpleasant consequences, would be quite as 
absurd as for an engineer to say that if he only thinks the 



244 ^ BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

track is clear, a collision, if it occurs, will not hurt anybody. 
Calhoun was sincere. But his sincerity did not prevent 
the Civil War — that tremendous result of the collision 
of the American people with one of the abiding realities of 
the world. What is it to live wisely but to take account 
of the facts, of the realities in the midst of which we live .-* 
And where else can we learn so impressively as from the 
study of history that there are realities not perceptible by 
the senses, and that the man or the nation that disregards 
them acts the part of a fool .? 

(4) Prepares for Citizenship. — The study of history 
ought also to be a preparation for the duties of citizenship. 
Who is the good citizen .-• He is the man who has a cer- 
tain kind of knowledge, a certain kind of reasoning power, 
and a certain effective ideal of civic duty. 

(a) By the Knowledge It Imparts. — It would be out of 
the question to enumerate the various kinds of knowledge 
which a good citizen ought to possess. Suffice it 
here to point out some of the more obvious lessons we 
ought to learn from the study of history, ignorance of 
which would make it impossible for us to act the part of 
grateful American citizens. If we do not know that 
national greatness is not measured by extent of territory 
or largeness of wealth, if we have not learned that a 
splendid material civilization may coexist with deteriorat- 
ing national character, if we do not see that the one thing 
which makes a nation respectable is the character of the 
men and women who comprise it, and that its sole title to 
greatness is derived from the qualities of mind and heart 
of its citizens, we cannot help throwing our influence on 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 



245 



the wrong side in important crises. And if we do not 
understand the ideas which lie at the foundation of our 
national history — that America has stood for equality 
before the law, and that any discrimination between man 
and man is disloyalty to our national ideals, — if we do not 
clearly perceive that a policy of colonization for mere 
aggrandizement is a Europeanization of our government, 
an obliteration of all that distinguishes it from the govern- 
ments of the Old World, we are in danger of proving un- 
faithful to our country. That we should have an intimate 
acquaintance with our Constitution, that we should know 
what are the duties of our officials, that we should under- 
stand that the government of the city, the State, or the 
nation is a wonderfully complex organization and that it 
should be conducted on business principles, that the mayor, 
governor, or president who appoints to office for any reason 
which would not appeal to the owner of a private enterprise 
is unfaithful to his trust, are matters too evident to make 
extended comment necessary. But the frequent corruption 
of our city and State governments, the passage of laws 
by our national legislature to promote the interests of a 
class or section rather than those of the whole people, are 
eloquent testimony to the fact that we have not learned 
these things with sufficient clearness. 

(b) By Developing a Certain Kind of Reasoning Power. 

— The good citizen needs also a certain kind of reasoning 
power. Unless a man has the sort of training that enables 
him to trace national conditions to their origin he is sure 
to be imposed upon by the fallacy which logicians call 
"false cause." A countless multitude of facts precede 
every event. To assume that any one of these is its real 



246 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

cause, without considering its natural fitness to produce 
the effect, is to be guilty of that fallacy. The man who 
fails to see that the mere fact that so complex a thing as 
national prosperity was preceded by a certain event hardly 
warrants the inference that the particular antecedent was 
its cause, that man becomes the catspaw of the designing 
party newspaper and the professional politician. To be 
able to vote intelligently we must be able to detect the fal- 
lacies of those who have a pecuniary interest in deceiving 
us, and such ability will grow only through exercising the 
sort of reason which the intelligent teaching of history 
cultivates. For in reasoning about historical subjects we 
are dealing with matters of the same sort that confront 
us in current political questions ; because, as Freeman 
so aptly remarked, " politics is present history, and his- 
tory is past politics." 

(c) By Fostering a High Civic Ideal. — A good citizen 
needs, also, a certain civic ideal. A very suggestive ques- 
tion was raised in a conversation that occurred between a 
banker and one of his friends during the presidential 
campaign of 1896. "We condemn in unmeasured terms," 
said the banker, "the man who sells his vote. But you 
and I intend at the coming election to vote the ticket that 
will put most money into our pockets. Since that is the 
motive which actuates the voter who accepts a bribe, what 
is the difference between his conduct and ours ? " I do 
not wish to insinuate that the act of a man who casts his 
vote solely with reference to his own interests is on a par 
with that of the man who sells his vote. But it ought to 
be evident without much discussion that if a voter feels 
that he has a right to cast his vote in brutal disregard of 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 247 

the interests of other people, he can hardly be expected 
to be conscious of the clear demarcation between that sort 
of right and the right to use any power he possesses with 
equal indifference to the public good. If a sharer in the 
profits of a trust has the right to vote for a candidate 
whose sole recommendation is that he may be depended 
upon to act in the interest of corporations, why has the 
former not a right to bribe other voters or to corrupt 
members of Congress in order to further his private ends .'* 
Why may he not debauch the voters of an entire State in 
order to gain office .-' 

The Theory of the Sophists The student of the his- 
tory of civilization has frequent occasion to note that 
society rarely casts off an error without giving up its hold 
on some connected truth. Up to the time of the Sophists, 
who began to teach in Greece about 450 B.C., the universal 
theory was that the individual was entirely subordinate 
to the state ; that he belonged to it body and soul ; that 
it was the source of all his duties and the measure of all 
his obligations. The Sophists called this theory in ques- 
tion. They saw that the individual, not the state, was the 
measure of all things. But from this truth it was but a 
step to the fallacy that the wisest life we can live is that 
which disregards the interests of society. To the errone- 
ous theory that the state is everything and the individual 
nothing they opposed one more fatally erroneous — that 
the individual is everything and society nothing. The 
old theory had held that the individual could make no 
claims upon the state, that he had no rights before it ; 
they maintained that society had no claims upon the 
individual, that he should take no account of it except to 



2,48 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

promote his own material interests. In a word, in getting 
rid of the old error they lost their grip on the fundamental 
truth that he only is mindful of his own highest good who 
has regard for the interests of others. 

Its American Counterpart. — Now classification is not 
proof ; and when it is maintained that the notion that a 
man may vote to put money into his pocket whether it be 
for the public good or not is identical with the theory of 
the Sophists, it is not asserted that anything is proved 
thereby. But either morality is the name, not of a funda- 
mental reality which a wise man must take account of, 
but of the factitious code which he should observe in 
seeking his material interests so far as convenient, or the 
Sophists, both Greek and American, are wrong. Either 
the difference between a moral and an immoral man is 
like that between a prize-fighter and an ordinary rough- 
and-tumble fighter, in that the latter seeks to inflict all 
the injury he can upon his opponent, while the former is 
hampered by the rules of the " ring," or else there is such 
a thing as civic duty. Either the Golden Rule is obso- 
lete, a canon which the world has outgrown, or its binding 
force holds when a man casts his vote. To disregard it 
is to disintegrate society into a host of self-seeking an- 
archistic individuals, when each man's hand will be against 
every man, and every man's hand against him. It is only 
by adherence to the Golden Rule that we can bind society 
into a living organic whole each member of which shall 
seek his own good only to that degree that he intelligently 
subordinates his own material good to the welfare of 
society. 

A teacher who has a keen perception of this truth — 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 249 

and only one who has can be of service to her pupils in 
this direction — will find no other of the school subjects so 
helpful as history to inculcate it. The lessons for the intel- 
lect are to be found here : the connection between the 
national well-being and the subordination of the material 
welfare of the individual to the public good. The persua- 
sive appeal to the emotions may be made here — the pres- 
entation of the characters of those who owe their place 
in history to their readiness to forego the gratification of 
their individual desires in the interest of the public good. 

These, then, are the ways in which the study of history 
contributes to the purposes of education : it promotes the 
study of human nature, cultivates sympathy and charity, 
deepens the sense of the reality of moral laws, and prepares 
for the duties of citizenship by imparting the knowledge, 
developing the kind of reasoning power, and fostering the 
ideals without which good citizenship is impossible. 

Children May Study History with Profit. — It may be 

urged that such benefits presuppose that the student brings 
to the consideration of history the maturity of the high 
school or the college. To this objection two replies may 
be made. In the first place, the six-year-old just entering 
school has already been a student of human nature for 
several years. Without help from any one he has discov- 
ered the existence of other people and made some progress 
in the study of individuals. The intelligent teacher of 
history will only build on the foundation the child has 
already laid. She will help him continue his study of 
human nature by telling him about people whom he has 
not seen ; she will broaden his sympathies by making him 
acquainted with the people of other lands and times. 



250 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

Moreover, if this were not true, the facts would still 
obUge us to maintain that if history should be studied at 
all, it is because of the benefits we have enumerated. If 
the boy in the elementary school cannot obtain these bene- 
fits, he cannot obtain any benefit whatever. 

We have got in the habit of talking about elementary, 
high-school, and college education, as though the things 
were as different as their names, and this has given cur- 
rency to the notion that the educational value of a subject 
depends on the grade of the school in which it is taught. 
We need to remember that in every stage of education 
it is a growing mind with which we have to do, and that 
the educational value of our efforts consists in the extent 
to which we have caused that mind to exercise its capacities 
to know, feel, and will. Now an elementary pupil either can 
or cannot be made to understand some of the simpler facts 
of biography and history ; if he can, he may be taught 
some of the simpler facts of human nature. He either 
can or cannot understand some of the simpler explanations 
of history ; if he can, he is capable of being trained in the 
kind of reasoning that the correct explanation of current 
political conditions requires. He either can or cannot be 
made to see the beauty of the lives of some of the noble 
men and women of the world ; if he can, it is possible that 
his own ideals may be changed through his study of 
history. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is meant by educational value? 

2. What is the comparison between medicine and studies intended 
to show ? 

3. In what way does history increase one's knowledge of himself 
and his fellows ? 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 



251 



4. What does Froude mean by the outward fact? 

5. How does history tend to develop sympathy and charity? 

6. In what way does it help us to realize that nations, like indi- 
viduals, must obey moral laws? 

7. What are the qualifications of a good citizen ? 

8. niustrate the sort of knowledge needed for citizenship. 

9. What kind of reasoning power must a good citizen possess, 
and how can he acquire it? 

10. What sort of ideal must a good citizen have? 

11. What is the story of the campaign of i<S96 intended to show? 

12. What theory as to the relation of the individual to society pre- 
vailed up to the time of the Sophists? 

13. What was their theory ? 

14. What is its American counterpart? 

15. Show that children may study history with profit. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Why is it so hard for most people to believe that the only reali- 
ties are material ? 

2. How may history help to show that there are other realities? 

3. Show that there is no such thing as a general cultivation of 
observation, memory, imagination, or reasoning. 

4. Who were the Sophists? 

5. What bearing do our conclusions as to plastic imitation have 
on the teaching of high civic ideals ? 

6. What should be the characteristics of the teacher who imparts 
such ideals, and why are they essential ? 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF SPELLING, LANGUAGE 
LESSONS, AND GRAMMAR. 

Spelling Has Little Educational Value. — As to the edu- 
cational value of spelling it is sufficient to say that it has 
little. The good speller has no clearer insight into the 
laws of nature or of mind than the poor speller, responds 
no more readily to any phase of beauty or call of duty. 
The sole distinction between them consists in the differ- 
ence of a certain kind of memory, the cultivation of which 
has little value for any other purpose. 

The Uses of Forgotten Knowledge. — Sir Joshua Fitch 
has an interesting paragraph on the uses of forgotten 
knowledge. " It would not be right to conclude," he says, 
"that all knowledge which is forgotten has failed to serve 
a useful purpose. It may be forgotten in the form in 
which it has been received, but it may reappear in another. 
... It is true that what is consciously got up for some 
temporary purpose drops out of the ground and leaves no 
trace. Like Jonah's gourd, it comes up in a night and 
perishes in a night. It is not of this I speak. But all 
knowledge once honestly acquired and made a subject of 
thought germinates, even though in time it becomes un- 
recognizable, and seems to disappear altogether. It has 
fulfilled its purpose, has deepened a conviction, has formed 
the legitimate ground for some conclusion on which in 

252 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF SPELLING. 



'^S3 



turn something else has been built ; and it gives to the 
learner a sense of freedom and of elbow-room when in 
after-life he is dealing with it and cognate subjects, such 
as he could not possibly experience if the subject were 
wholly new to him. Rules serve their purpose if they 
form our habits of speech or of action, even though these 
habits are not consciously obedient to the rules, and 
although the rules themselves could not be restated in an 
explicit form. A demonstration in mathematics has done 
its work if, for the time, it gave an insight into the true 
method of reasoning, even though in later life we utterly 
fail to remember the theorem or the proof. So the exact 
character of a set of experimental illustrations in physics 
may be entirely forgotten ; yet if the truth they illustrated 
was by their help fastened on the mind, and has subse- 
quently-been seen in wider and more varied application, we 
have no right to say that the original effort has been 
wasted. . . . Here, then, is one of the tests of our school- 
lessons. Grant that as school-lessons they will be for- 
gotten. Let us reconcile ourselves to this as inevitable, 
and ask in relation to everything which we teach : Is it 
germinating and fruit-bearing or not ? When the husk 
and shell shall have decayed, will there be anything left .'* 
If so, what ? Will this bit of knowledge drop wholly out 
of the memory and leave no trace .'' " ^ 

An application of this test will make it evident that 
spelling as such has no educational value. When the spell- 
ing of a word drops out of the memory, it leaves no trace 
behind. No conviction has been deepened on account of 
it, no sense of freedom has resulted from it. By a dead 
heave of mechanical memory the combination of letters 

1 Fitch, Lectures on Teaching, p. 145. 



154 ^ BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

which composed the word was fixed in the mind, and when 
it dropped out the mind was reheved of the burden of 
unintelhgent facts which it is obhged to carry — and that 
is all. The stress, therefore, that is laid upon correct 
spelling is a mere fashion and, as every one knows, of 
comparatively recent adoption. 

Conventional Value of Spelling. — But no one supposes 
that we are therefore warranted in not taking the trouble 
to learn to spell properly. Society, as we know, imposes 
severe penalties upon those who disregard its fashions, and 
the man who is not a good speller is assumed to be an 
uneducated person, incapable of filling a position that de- 
mands training and intelligence. 

What Words Children Should Be Taught to Spell. — But 
since spelling has little intrinsic educational value, the abil- 
ity to spell words that one cannot use is of no benefit. We 
are therefore bound to prevent our pupils from wasting 
their time in learning to spell words of whose meanings 
they are ignorant. To know how to spell words which 
one is unable to use can only serve to prepare one to shine 
in a spelling-match, and life is too short to make it expedi- 
ent to indulge in such ornamental accomplishments. 

Conventional and Real Value of the Ability to Use Good 
English. — That capacity to speak and write well which 
language lessons aim to develop has a greater conventional 
value even than spelling. Incorrect, slovenly English at 
once stamps its user not only as uneducated, but as ill-bred. 
But to this conventional value the ability to use correct, 
clear, forcible, and elegant English adds a high degree of 



LANGUAGE LESSONS — GRAMMAR. 255 

intrinsic worth. Whether a man talks to give pleasure, or 
to persuade, or to convince, the probability that he will 
accomplish his purpose depends in part on his capacity for 
effective speech. Moreover, the abihty to write well con- 
tributes appreciably to the pleasure and profit one may 
get from reading. 

Language Lessons Should Deepen a Child's Interest in 
His Work. — It may be worth while to repeat that since 
language lessons should grow out of the social natvire of 
the child, they ought to deepen his interest in the school 
subjects to which they are related. Now when he tells 
his classmates, for example, about a book they have not 
read, the effort to make it clear to them will increase his 
capacity for effective speech and, at the same time, deepen 
his own interest in the book. This, therefore, is another 
element of the educational value of language lessons : they 
ought to increase the interest in the other work of the school. 

Grammar (i) Cultivates the Power of Discrimination. — 

The study of grammar is primarily a study of the functions 
of words. " By grammar we do not learn to speak, no, nor 
even to read and write," says Dr. Earle, "but we learn the 
relations of words to one another in the use of speech. . . . 
The subject-matter of grammar is . . . the relations which 
words bear to one another in formed sentences." The 
study of grammar tends, therefore, to cultivate in a high 
degree the power of discrimination. Now growth in intel- 
lectual power in one of its phases consists in the develop- 
ment of this capacity. The mind begins its career in this 
world without the power to see any differences, even the 
most obvious. Every step in its progress from infancy to 



1^6 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

maturity is marked by an increase in its power of discrimi- 
nation. A growth in its power to observe means a ca- 
pacity to see differences where only likenesses were seen 
before ; a growth in its capacity to think means a power to 
distinguish thought relations that previously were confused. 
A study, therefore, that is largely devoted to the de- 
termination of the precise meaning of words has great 
educational value. 

(2) Promotes the Study of the Mind. — The study of 
grammar may also be made to promote the close and criti- 
cal study of the mind. It is not the physical relations of 
words to one another that grammar seeks to discover. If 
it were, the university student of grammar would have no 
advantage over a three-year-old child. The only physical 
relations into which words can enter are those of space, 
and no maturity is required to tell which words come first 
in a sentence and which second, which words are adjacent 
to one another and which are separated by other words. 
No ; the relations of words with which grammar is con- 
cerned are those which they bear to one another as expres- 
sive of thoughts. To understand, for example, the relation 
of brigJit to the other words of the sentence, " A bright 
boy learns quickly," is to know that when we are thinking 
of boy in general we have in mind the entire class, able, 
mediocre, stupid, idiotic, and that brigJit limits it in a 
certain way, makes a sub-class of those possessing certain 
qualities. Now this study of the thought relations of 
words often requires a close study of the mind. What, for 
example, is the force of the conjunctions in the sentence, 
" Peas and beans may be severed from the ground before 
they be quite dry ; hut they must not be put into sacks or 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF GRAMMAR. 



257 



barns until perfectly dry ; for ?/ they be, they will molder " ? 
If we say that and joins together /^«j- and beans, we have 
either stated an irrelevant truism, or we have left the mat- 
ter entirely unexplained. If the statement means — as it 
probably does in the mind of many grammar-school pupils 
— that two printed words are connected by a third, it is an 
irrelevant truism. The object of the study of grammar is 
not to ascertain the physical relations of physical things. 
But if the statement is intended as a description of the fact 
of consciousness which and expresses, it fails to accomplish 
its purpose. For we do not learn anything about what 
takes place in the mind when we are told that and con- 
nects peas and beatis. 

Similar criticism applies to the way in which but is often 
disposed of. When it is said that but expresses the rela- 
tion of the first to the second member of the sentence, the 
question which must be answered is. What kind of relation .? 
Not to raise that question is to permit the pupil to content 
himself with knowing, or rather feeling, that the thought 
expressed by the first member stands in some indefinite re- 
lation to that expressed by the second — is to encourage 
just that hazy sort of thinking which it is an important 
object of education to put an end to. 

(3) Should Illustrate the Difference Between Knowledge 
and Opinion. — The study of grammar should also help the 
pupil to realize the difference between what he knows and 
what he merely believes. When a child first enters school 
he knows very little. He understands that such and such 
objects are called trees, but he does not know precisely in 
what respects such objects differ from all others, nor in 
what respects they agree. If he is confronted with a big 



o^8 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

palm and is asked whether it is a tree, he cannot tell. He 
has what may be termed a feeling as to what a tree is, but 
no genuine knowledge. And this is his state of mind with 
reference to all the objects which he seems to himself to 
know. He is in the same condition in which the whole 
world was up to the time of Socrates. Socrates first saw, 
historians of philosophy tell us, the difference between 
knowledge and opinion, and thereby marked an epoch of 
the first importance in the history of thought. Now the 
study of grammar should help to create just such an epoch 
in the history of the pupil. It should help him to form 
logical concepts of the various parts of speech, and thereby 
enable him to realize the difference between a logical con- 
cept — one whose content is clearly and definitely marked 
off from everything else in the mind — and a psychological 
concept — a state of mind in which one feels the resem- 
blances between those members of the class for which the 
concept stands without definitely knowing what those 
resemblances are. 

These, then, it is submitted, are the chief elements of 
the educational value of grammar : it cultivates the power 
of discrimination, promotes the study of the mind, and 
helps to make clear the difference between knowledge and 
opinion. The notion that it contributes materially to help 
the student to speak and write the language correctly is 
so generally discredited that no space will be wasted in 
discussing it. All progressive teachers understand that 
language lessons must be chiefly relied on to promote cor- 
rectness in the use of language. 

At What Age Should Grammar be Studied ? — To what 
extent may the pupils of the elementary school derive this 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF GRAMMAR. 259 

kind of benefit from the study of grammar ? The present 
state of pedagogical knowledge does not permit a precise 
answer to this question. The acts of discrimination re- 
quired in the mastery of grammar vary between those that 
may be performed by the average ten-year-old pupil and 
those that would tax the powers of a college freshman. 
Manifestly this applies also to the knowledge of the mind 
which an intelligent study of grammar requires. 

There are, then, phases of the subject easily within the 
grasp of the pupils of the elementary school. But it does 
not follow that because they are, grammar should be made 
a part of the elementary-school course. No one has a 
right to form a definitive opinion on that point until he 
has made an exact comparison of the precise benefits to 
be derived from the study of grammar with those that 
might be derived from the study of some substituted sub- 
ject. That comparison no one can now make in any 
exact sense ; it is safe to say that no one will ever be able 
to make it. We shall probably always be obliged to con- 
tent ourselves with a feeling as to what is true in this 
direction — a feeling that can never be expressed in the 
terms of an exact science. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT, 

1. Show that spelling has little educational value. 

2. What are the uses of forgotten knowledge? 

3. What does Fitch mean by " fruit-bearing"? 

4. What is meant by conventional value ? 

5. What words should children be taught to spell ? 

6. What is the conventional value of the ability to use good 
English? 

7. How does grammar cultivate the power of discrimination? 

8. Illustrate how it promotes the study of the mind. 



l6o A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

9. What is the difference between a logical and a psychological 
concept ? 

10. What is the difference between opinion and knowledge, and in 
what way does the study of grammar help to make it clear ? 

11. At what age should the study of grammar be undertaken^? 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Can you illustrate from your own experience the fact that you 
have derived benefit from learning some things which you have 
entirely forgotten ? 

2. Illustrate the fact that growth in intellectual power consists in 
the development of the capacity of discrimination. 

3. What relation does grammar bear to logic, psychology, and 
history ? 

4. Mention some parts of grammar that the primary pupil can 
comprehend, and some that are beyond the range of the grammar 
school pupil. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF READING. 

Reading and Education. — This chapter could with 
almost equal propriety be entitled The Educational Value 
of Education. For the process of education might with- 
out serious inaccuracy be defined as reading the right 
books in the right way. He who leaves school with his 
taste so cultivated that he can discriminate between good 
books and bad, and with his powers so developed that he 
can assimilate what he reads, has the essentials of an edu- 
cation ; while he who cannot do this is at bottom an un- 
educated man, no matter what universities he may have 
attended or how many degrees may have been conferred 
upon him. 

Nevertheless the training resulting from such subjects 
as arithmetic, grammar, language lessons, nature study, 
and even history could not, without an undue extension of 
the term, be included under reading as the word is used in 
this country. What is here proposed for discussion is the 
educational value of that school exercise which goes by the 
name of reading. 

Dr. Harris on the Educational Value of Reading. — Dr. 

Harris maintains that the mere process of learning to read 
is "far more disciplinary to the mind than any species of 
observation of differences among material things, because 
of the fact that the word has a twofold character — ad- 

361 



262 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

dressed to external sense as spoken sound to the ear, or as 
written and printed word to the eye — but containing a 
meaning or sense addressed to the understanding and only 
to be seized by introspection." "The pupil," he continues, 
"must call up the corresponding idea by thought, memory, 
and imagination, or else the word will cease to be a word 
and remain only a sound or character. On the other 
hand, observation of things and movements does not neces- 
sarily involve this twofold act of analysis, introspective and 
objective, but only the latter — the objective analysis. It 
is granted that we all have frequent occasion to condemn 
poor methods of instruction as teaching words rather than 
things. But we admit that we mean empty sounds or 
characters rather than true words. Our suggestions for 
the correct method of teaching amount in this case simply 
to laying stress on the meaning of the word, and to setting 
the teaching process on the road of analysis of content 
rather than form. In the case of words used to store up 
external observation the teacher is told to repeat and make 
alive again the act of observation by which the word ob- 
tained its original meaning. In the case of a word ex- 
pressing a relation between facts or events, the pupil is to 
be taken step by step through the process of reflection by 
which the idea was built up. Since the word, spoken and 
written, is the sole instrument by which reason can fix, pre- 
serve, and communicate both the data of sense and the re- 
lations discovered between them by reflection, no new 
method in education has been able to supplant in the 
school the branches, reading and penmanship. But the 
real improvements in method have led teachers to lay 
greater and greater stress on the internal factor of the 
word, on its meaning, and have in manifold ways shown 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF READING. 263 

how to repeat the original experiences that gave the mean- 
ing to concrete words, and the original comparisons and 
logical deductions by which the ideas of relation and causal 
processes arose in the mind and required abstract words to 
preserve and communicate them."^ 

The Educational Value of Reading and Observation Les- 
sons. — While what is here said as to improvements in the 
methods of teaching reading may be readily granted, the 
validity of the argument to show the superiority of the 
educational value of learning to read over observation les- 
sons is not beyond dispute. For, however true it may be 
that the observation of a flower, for example, calls for 
nothing but objective analysis, while learning to read a 
simple sentence, as Tlie dog runs, involves not only this, but 
the recalling of the thought which it expresses, we have no 
right to draw from this any conclusions as to the compara- 
tive disciplinary effect of the two processes on the mind 
until we have learned which of the two calls forth the more 
strenuous exertion. If the objective analysis involved in 
the study of the flower demands more concentrated atten- 
tion than do both the objective and the introspective analy- 
sis required in reading a sentence, then the single act of 
analysis necessary in the one case is more disciplinary than 
the double act involved in the other. 

From this point of view it is at once evident that the 
question whether the observation of things or reading is 
the more disciplinary cannot be answered. For while in 
some cases the introspective analysis required in intelligent 
reading is so simple that the school child in the lowest 
grades has no difficulty in performing it, in others it tests 
1 Report of the Committee of Fifteen, 



2,64 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

severely the powers of mature and able men. No child 
has any doubt as to the meaning of 

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, 
How I wonder what you arel 
Up above the world so high, 
Like a diamond in the sky." 

But who can be sure that he realizes the thought which 
Shakspere meant to express when he wrote these lines : 

" What may this mean, 
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel 
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, 
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature 
So horridly to shake our disposition 
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?" 

Or that sublime cathedral the vision of which entranced 
Wordsworth when he wrote : 

" But for those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized. 
High instincts, before which our mortal nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised : 
But for those first affections. 
Those shadowy recollections, 
Which, be they what they may. 
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing"? 

On the other hand, that a fish has gills, two eyes, and 
a tail is evident at a glance to a child ; but the ability to 
see in it all that Agassiz saw results only from long and 
strenuous years of study. 

It appears, therefore, that the question as to the com- 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF READING. 265 

parative disciplinary value of reading and observation 
lessons cannot be answered because it deals with incom- 
mensurable things. The discussion, however, has served 
its purpose if it has made clear the fact that reading has a 
disciplinary value — that an increase of intellectual power 
may as certainly result from the study of a poem as from 
the study of a problem in geometry.^ 

Mistakes in the Teaching of Reading. — But it is not 

primarily because of its effect on the intellect that reading 
deserves the place that will one day be accorded to it in 
the school. The notion that it is responsible for some 
grievous errors. In the college and the university it 
causes professors to mistake a learned acquaintance with 
editions and analyses and annotations and allusions and 
etymologies for an appreciative knowledge of literature ; 
in the grammar school and the high school it makes 
teachers confound a detailed knowledge of the Hves of 
great writers with a love of the works to which those writers 
owe their place in the world. Knowledge of editions 
and etymologies and biographies is at best only knowledge 
about literature.- To confuse this with literature itself is 
like confusing an account of a banquet with the banquet 
itself, or a description of Beethoven's symphonies with the 
symphonies themselves. The ultimate purpose of all 
knowledge about literature is to help the student to re- 
think the thoughts and refeel the feelings of an author. 
So far as this knowledge contributes to that end it is good; 
so far as it is taken as a substitute for literature itself it is 
absolutely pernicious. Better by far an intimate, loving 

1 See Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, pp. 26-34, for a splendid illustration 
of the way in which this intellectual cultivation may be derived. 



266 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

acquaintance with Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations 
of ImmortaHty or Gray's Elegy written in a Country 
Churchyard, without any knowledge whatever of the per- 
sonality of the authors, than an external, mechanical ac- 
quaintance, however extended, with their lives, without any 
knowledge of their works. "The essence of literature," it 
has been finely said, " is beauty. To study it mechanically 
is like grasping a butterfly." 

Value of the Knowledge of Real Men. — It is indeed true, 
as Socrates long ago insisted, that a knowledge of human 
nature is of all knowledge the most valuable. And to 
know the great men of the world is peculiarly -valuable. 
By becoming intimately acquainted with the seers of the 
race we may learn what they thought about the art of 
living — the art of so ordering our lives as to make them 
in the deepest and truest sense a success. Standing on 
their shoulders we may perhaps see above the fogs and 
vapors that dim the eye of public opinion, and realize that 
the only genuinely successful hfe is that which is knit 
most closely to the human race ; that the only wealth that 
counts is that greatness of soul which enriches not only its 
possessor, but all other men ; that our real purpose here is 
"to make ourselves brave, true, just, and honorable men."^ 

How to Become Acquainted with a Man of Thought. — 

But you can no more get a vital knowledge of a man of 
thought by learning what he did than you can of a man of 
action by learning what he wrote. The one put his deep- 
est, truest self into his deeds, the other into his writings. 
That is what Noah Porter meant when he said that a good 
1 Educational Review, Vol. V. p. 169. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF READING. 267 

book is of more value to the world than a good man. A 
good book is a good man at his best — a good man 
idealized. To be content, therefore, with biographical 
knowledge — with knowing, for example, when Words- 
worth was born, where he lived, when he travelled, with 
whom he talked, what poems he wrote — is like going to 
a museum and spending the time in ascertaining the size 
of the building and the amount of room given to its various 
departments. 

Literature in the Elementary School — Homer and Shaks- 
pere. — Can the pupil of the elementary school sit at the 
feet of the sages of the world and be taught by them ? 
To some extent he can. The deepest lessons that Homer 
and Dante and Shakspere and Milton have to teach 
he could not learn, even if he had the time to study 
them. But there are detached passages from all these 
writers which can be made to appeal to him not only 
because of their literary beauty, but because of their per- 
suasive presentation of some helpful view of man and life. 

From "the great Homeric story" he may learn how 
Achilles, " though aided continually by the wisest of the 
gods, and burning with the desire of justice in his heart, 
becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel 
of men." ^ 

From a study of Shakspere's historical plays he may 
learn " how a man may succeed in attaining a practical 
mastery of the world," ^ and be made to see the stern 
reality of the moral laws by which the world is governed, 
and that a man cannot outrage them without being over- 

1 Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies. 

2 Dowden, Shakspere's Mind and Art. 



268 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

whelmed. Learning from the teacher the less mteresting 
parts of the story, he may be taught in the master's own 
language those lessons of life which are valid for all time. 

Elsewhere in this book stress has been laid upon the 
importance of biography. In connection with these histor- 
ical plays, the educational value of biography and that of 
literature may be so combined that each may be made to 
heighten the effect of the other. To illustrate. Take the 
story of Cardinal Wolsey. Shakspere tells us that " from 
his cradle he was a scholar, and a ripe and good one, 
exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading," avaricious 
indeed, but of princely generosity, endowing, after the 
fashion of the rich men of our time, "those towers of 
learning, Ipswich and Oxford." But he was, withal, a 
man of unbounded and unscrupulous ambition, "ever rank- 
ing himself with princes," ready to employ any means to 
attain his ends. " Simony was fair play. In the presence 
[of the king] he would say untruths ; and be ever double 
both in his words and meaning " ; pitiless except when he 
meant to ruin, mighty in his promises, but in his perform- 
ance nothing. And so he fell. In language as beautiful 
as it is pathetic he is himself made to set forth the causes 
of his fall : 

" Farewell 1 a long farewell to all my greatness I 
This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him ; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ; 
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders. 
This many siimmers in a sea of glory, 
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF READING. 269 

At length broke under me and now has left me, 
Weary and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye : 
I feel my heart new open'd; O, how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors 1 " 

And Still more plainly in the following passage : 

"Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear 
In all my miseries ; but thou hast forc'd me. 
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. 
Let's dry our eyes : and thus far hear me, Cromwell ; 
And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be, 
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 
Of me more must be heard of, say, I taught thee, 
Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory. 
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor, 
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise inj 
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it. 
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me. 
•Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: 
By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it ? 
Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee ; 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. 
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not : 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king; 
And, — prythee, lead me in : 
There take an inventory of all I have. 
To the last penny ; 'tis the king's : my robe 
And my integrity to heaven, is all 
I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell! 
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal 
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 

And SO he who had " trod the ways of glory, and sounded 
all the depths and shoals of honor," went, an "old man, 



270 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



broken with the storms of state," to the Abbey of Leices- 
ter, and asked permission " to lay his weary bones among 
ye," and begged "a little earth for charity," and there died. 

Burns, Lowell, and Holmes. — But not alone from the 
great writers who "roll on like mighty rivers through the 
country of thought," but from the "little Valclusa foun- 
tains," the Burnses, Lowells, Holmeses, and hosts of other 
men, may our pupils refresh themselves. Burns shall teach 
them the dignity and gi'andeur of simple, unassuming man- 
hood. Lowell shall make them feel that there is a lofty 
patriotism which does not say, "My country, may she be 
right ! but right or wrong, my country ! " but which fairly 
quivers with anguish at the thought of national dishonor 
and national wrong-doing. Holmes shall tell them how, as 
the swift seasons roll, they may build for their souls more 
stately mansions. 

What Literature is Available for School Purposes. — 
How much may be done in this direction, how much pre- 
cious ore may be mined from our own great literature and 
the other literatures of the world for the enrichment of the 
school, I do not know — I do not believe that any one does. 
The world has not yet come to see that the art of living 
is tJic art, and that whoever is ignorant of that, whatever 
else he may know, knows nothing to the point. Nor has 
the world yet realized that the only criterion by which we 
can determine the value of an institution to society is the 
extent to which it contributes to this art, and that therefore 
to the school belongs an unquestioned preeminence among 
the institutions of civilization. Nor, again, has the world yet 
come to learn that the school can best perform its transcend- 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF READING. 27 1 

ently important work by passing on to the rising generation 
the deepests insights and highest aspirations of the race. 
Nor has it yet come to feel that Hterature is not, as Spencer 
seems to think, a sort of toy to amuse one in his leisure 
moments, but an educational force of profound importance. 
When that day comes, as come it will, some tasks now 
thought beneath their dignity will appear not unworthy of 
great men. Then great scholars will realize the extent of 
the service they can render to society by ransacking the 
literatures of the world for the fittest material to be used 
in the education of the young. When generations of able 
and devoted scholars shall have worked at this task, when 
generations of thoroughly trained teachers shall have availed 
themselves of their work, and that in a society where ideals 
of life and conduct have been more and more moulded by 
the deepest insights of the race, I believe that results may 
be accomplished by education which we hardly dare hope 
for now. In this connection we should do well to re- 
member that perhaps the greatest mind that ever worked 
out an elaborate philosophy of education — a mind that no 
one will accuse of undervaluing the importance of intellec- 
tual training and the dignity of intellectual life — reached 
the conclusion that the one aim of elementary education 
should be the formation of character, and that the great 
instrument to be employed in attaining this is literature. 
Very suggestive, also, is one of the figures he used to 
express his idea of the way in which literature might be 
made to produce this effect. The study of literature, said 
Plato, should dye the character so indelibly with a love of 
the principles by which life is to be guided, that all the 
temptations to which life may be subjected will not avail to 
wash it out. 



272. A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

Pleasure to be Derived from Literature. — In addition 
to the intellectual and moral effects which should be aimed 
at in the teaching of literature may be mentioned the 
capacity to enjoy it. The boy who thoroughly enjoys 
Gray's Elegy has studied it to some purpose even if he is no 
better — although he probably will be — for having studied 
it. Indeed the peculiar moral effect which may be pro- 
duced by the study of literature is probably due to the fact 
that it is beautiful as well as ethical. However this may 
be, literature that is simply beautiful has a right to a place 
in the school programme. Take, for instance, such lines 
as these of Shelley's : 

" In a dell 'mid lawny hills 
Which the wild sea murmur fills, 
And soft sunshine, and the sound 
Of old forests echoing round, 
And the light and smell divine 
Of all the flowers that breathe and shine." 

They fill the mind with beautiful thoughts of Nature and 
her sensuous delights, and therefore represent a type 
of literature which the school should teach. For, we 
remember, delight in and appreciation of beauty is one of 
the ultimate ends of Ufe, one of the things that make life 
worth the living. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. Why does Dr. Harris think that learning to read is more dis- 
ciplinary than the observation of things ? 

2. Is his argument sound ? 

3. What does he mean by introspective analysis, and what by 
objective analysis ? 

4. Upon what improvements in method does he lay stress? 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF READING. 



273 



5. How are the comparative values of reading and observation 
lessons to be ascertained? 

6. Emphasize some mistakes that are made in the teaching of 
reading. 

7. What is meant by a " man of thought," and how are we to get 
acquainted with him ? 

8. Show that the elementary pupil may be taught to appreciate 
the great writers of the world. 

9. What did Plato regard as the aim of elementary education? 
10. What study contributes most directly to that end? 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Do you think the phrase "thoughts beyond the reaches of 
our souls " expressed a definite idea in Shakspere's mind ? 

2. Do you know what the quotation from Wordsworth means ? 

3. How can you ascertain whether the pupils in the upper grades 
of the grammar school can be interested in Shakspere's story of 
Wolsey ? 

4. Why has so little been done towards making the great litera- 
tures of the world available for the school? 

5. What literatures have received most attention in the school 
and why ? 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF ARITHMETIC. 

Arithmetic as a Science and as an Art. — Arithmetic is 
both a science and an art. As a science it is concerned 
with the principles that underhe arithmetical operations ; 
as an art, with the rules in accordance with which those 
operations are performed and the requisite facility in apply- 
ing them. As an art it is occupied with the result and the 
result only ; as a science, with the method by which the 
result was reached, and the logical relations of its various 
steps. One asks zvJiat is true ; the other, wJiy it is true. 
So far as it is an art, all that the boy needs to know when 
he is dealing with the division of fractions is that he must 
invert the terms of the divisor and proceed as in multipli- 
cation ; from the scientific side it behooves him to know 
why this is so — what is the particular property of num- 
ber that makes necessary this process in order to arrive at 
the truth. Evidently, therefore, the educational value of 
the subject differs according as it is considered as an art 
or as a science. 

Educational Value of Arithmetic as an Art. — As an art 

arithmetic should be taught to give accuracy to the child's 
concepts. As Professor Jackman puts it, " It is the func- 
tion of the mathematical element in education to give 
accuracy and exactness to ideas, to render hazy notions 
clear, and to evolve the definite from the indefinite."^ 

1 Educational Review, Vol. V. p. 41. 
274 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OP^ ARITHMETIC. 275 

The prevalent opinion is that the importance of arithme- 
tic as an art is due to its bearing on the problems of every- 
day life, commerce, etc. But wherever knowledge is 
needed for any purpose, whether for thought or for action, 
exact information is manifestly more useful than indefinite 
knowledge. If it is worth while to know that the sun is a 
long way off, it is still better worth while to know that it 
is ninety-three millions of miles away ; if it is useful to 
know that light travels with almost inconceivable rapidity, 
the knowledge that it travels at the rate of one hundred 
and eighty thousand miles in a second is still more useful ; 
if any purpose is served in knowing that the yearly income 
of some of our rich Americans is almost fabulously great, 
that purpose is served in a still higher degree by knowing 
that the income of John D. Rockefeller is probably more 
than twice as great as was that of the American govern- 
ment during any year of Washington's two administrations. 
In a word, whether knowledge is for the sake of thought 
or of feeling or of action, it will perform its function well 
or ill according as it is exact or inexact. Thinking that is 
based on inexact knowledge issues in incorrect conclusions, 
feeling that results from it may be positively harmful, and 
action that is prompted by it is likely to be injudicious. 

Arithmetic as an Art Should Give Definiteness to all our 
Concepts. — The difference between the ordinary and the 
true conception of the educational value of arithmetic as 
an art becomes apparent when we remember that while 
the erroneous theory regards its value as consisting in its 
capacity to give definiteness to a certain restricted class of 
the child's future concepts, the true theory finds it valuable 
because it helps to give definiteness to all his ideas, as 



276 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

well those that he has now as those that he may form 
throughout life. A pernicious fallacy strongly entrenched 
in current educational thought is that since education is of 
value only in so far as it is of service in the making of a 
livelihood, it has no relation to the life of the child during 
the formative years. As thus conceived his education is like 
the nuts the squirrel stores up in summer — for the future. 
It is a process of storing up facts and intellectual power, 
and acquiring capacities, that will be useful to him when 
he begins to make his own way in the world — not before. 

If any reader of this book is still of this opinion, we can 
only say that since Ephraim is joined to his idols, there is 
nothing to be done but to let him alone. But those who 
agree with us in holding that education is a process of 
preparation for living need not be reminded that the only 
way to get ready to live is to live. The child acquires 
the capacity for the larger physical and mental tasks of 
the morrow by doing the smaller ones of to-day. Life; 
consists of an uninterrupted series of changes : it is the 
function of education so to correlate these changes that 
they shall constitute an uninterrupted growth. 

From this point of view it is evident that the true object 
of teaching arithmetic as an art is to give that degree of 
definiteness to the child's conceptions which will best enable 
him to live in the present. Child and man aUke, each ac- 
cording to his capacity, are to " think clear, feel deep, bear 
fruit well." And if we have grasped the thought that the 
life of each of us should be such as to make it a distinct 
contribution to the wealth of the universe, we shall be able 
to see that the more completely this is so the more cer- 
tainly will every phase of life have intrinsic value. To 
give to every stage of it that degree of completeness which 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE. OF ARITHMETIC. 277 

depends on exact, vivid conceptions is, we repeat, the 
function of arithmetic as an art. 

Two Methods of Teaching Arithmetic as an Art. — Two 

very different methods are followed in the teaching of 
arithmetic : one seeks to develop in the mind of the child 
certain conceptions in order to have material for problems ; 
the other takes the conceptions he has already formed and 
employs arithmetic to give them greater definiteness. No 
one will deny that the former has been the method almost 
universally pursued. The child has been taught certain 
facts about stocks, bonds, taxes, commissions, insurance, 
interest, discount, and the like, not because information 
about these things at that time is valuable in itself, but 
because those facts furnish materials for a certain sort of 
problems. Now the method that makes what is taught 
depend upon arithmetic has nothing whatever in common 
with the method that makes arithmetic depend upon the 
immediate needs of a child as a human being. The one 
subordinates growth to arithmetic ; the other employs arith- 
metic as a means of growth. The one is the logical result of 
the theory that the object of education is merely to enable 
the future man to do certain things ; the other, of the 
theory that its function is to transform the inner life so 
as to make it a thing of beauty and of intrinsic worth. 

How Arithmetic may Give Definiteness (i) to the Concepts 
of Elementary Science. — Professor Jackman has shown 
in the able article already cited how arithmetic may be 
employed to make the concepts of elementary science more 
clear. I quote the series of problems given to illustrate his 
point : 



278 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

"I. Germination: Absorption of Water by Seeds. — i. How many 
grams of water will ten grams of seeds absorb ? 2. Ten grams of seeds 
absorb what part of their weight or bulk of water? 3. What is the ratio 
of the weight (or bulk) of dry seeds to the weight (or bulk) of water they 
will absorb ? 4. Dry seeds will absorb what per cent of their weight of 
water ? 5. Precisely similar problems in comparing results gained from 
study of different kinds of seeds. 

"II. Study of Soil: Absorption of Water. — i. Twenty grams of 
soil will absorb how many grams of water .'' 2. Twenty grams of soil will 
absorb what part of its weight of water ? 3. What is the ratio of twenty 
grams of dry soil to the water it will absorb? 4. Dry soil will absorb what 
per cent of its weight of water ? 5. Precisely the same questions relating 
to subsoil, sand, etc., and comparisons between them. 

"III. Mechanical Constituents OF Soil. — i. Fifty grams of soil 
contain how much sand ? 2. What part of fifty grams of soil is sand ? 
3. What is the ratio of sand in fifty grams of soil ? 4. In fifty grams of 
soil what per cent is sand ? 5. Precisely similar questions in regard to 
subsoil, loam, etc., and comparisons of results. 

" IV. Relation of Animals and Plants as shown by a Study 
OF Leaves. — i. In fifty leaves, how many have in some way been used 
by insects? 2. In fifty leaves, what part has been injured by insects? 

3. In fifty leaves, what is the ratio of injured leaves to those uninjured? 

4. In fifty leaves, what per cent has been injured by insects? 5. Precisely 
similar questions growing out of a study and comparison of different trees. 

" V. Meteorology for a Month : Study of Rainy Days. — i . How 
many days have been rainy ? 2. What part of the entire month has been 
rainy ? 3. What is the ratio of dry days to wet ones during the month ? 
4. The number of wet days during the month is what per cent of the entire 
number ? 5. Precisely similar problems arising from a study of different 
months and the meteorological conditions of temperature, air-pressure, etc. 

"VI. Animal Life: Protective Coloration. — i. In twenty-five instances 
how many times did the same butterfly alight in situations where its color 
was protective ? 2. What part of the whole number of times in twenty-five 
instances did the same butterfly seek protective situations? 3. In twenty- 
five instances the niimber of times when the same butterfly sought protec- 
tive situations bears what ratio to the number of times when the situation 
was non-protective? 4. In what per cent of twenty-five cases did the same 
buttei-fly seek protective situations ? 5. Precisely similar questions relat- 
ing to other insects, and comparisons growing therefrom." 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF ARITHMETIC. 279 

(2) To the Concepts of Geography. — Arithmetic may 
also be employed to give definiteness and vividness to the 
ideas that are gained from the study of geography. Into 
how many States of the size of Rhode Island could Texas 
be divided .'' What is the difference between the area of 
the German empire and that of the United States ? What 
approximate number of people could live in the Mississippi 
Valley if it were as densely populated as Belgium is ? 
Questions of this kind could not but prove helpful. 

(3) Ideas Acquired Out of School. — Arithmetic may also 
be made to render more definite and vivid the ideas that the 
child has acquired out of school. To illustrate : If a man 
earns ten dollars a week and has to pay a dollar and a half 
a week for rent, how much can he spend during the year 
for food, clothes, and other necessaries ? If the bread for 
his family costs five cents a day, what per cent of his in- 
come does he pay for it .-* If a carpenter earns two dollars 
and a half a day and spends sixty cents a week for car-fare, 
how many days in the year must he work for the money 
he pays for riding .-' Questions of this sort can of course 
be varied and multipUed indefinitely, and the answering of 
them gives vividness and definiteness to ideas the child 
already possesses. 

Incidental and Accidental Teaching of Form Subjects. — 

This change of front does not, however, mean that less 
care is to be taken about the thorough teaching of arith- 
metical operations. "The same principle," to quote Pro- 
fessor Jackman again, "precisely holds in this case that 
is already recognized to some extent and obeyed in teach- 
ing other subjects. Formerly spelling, reading, etc., were 



28o A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION., 

taught as ends ; now thoiigJit is the end and they are inci- 
dental. The fatal mistake that has been made is in teach- 
ing the thougJit, and making the spelling, etc., accidental. 
There is a mighty difference between the incidental teach- 
ing of form subjects and the accidental teaching of them. 
So now, in this number work, the teacher must clearly 
work for the intrinsic thought" — definiteness of ideas — 
" and make the teaching of the arithmetical operations 
incidental but by no means accidental. These opera- 
tions must be just as thoroughly taught as ever before ; 
they will be more thoroughly taught and in far less 
time, too, when teachers really grasp the subject-matter in 
hand." ^ 

Arithmetic as a Science should (i) Make Clear the Differ- 
ence Between First- and Second-hand Knowledge. — The 

study of arithmetic as a science ought to help to make clear 
the difference between first- and second-hand knowledge. 
We say "help to make clear." For even in the grammar 
school the pupil should be led to see the difference between 
these in all of the subjects he studies ; to see, for example, 
that while he is obliged to accept the facts of history or 
geography on the authority of book or teacher, some one 
had to get a first-hand knowledge of them. The difference 
between arithmetic as a science and all the other elemen- 
tary school subjects, in this particular, is that in teaching 
the former not a single step can be taken without putting 
this distinction in the foreground. The object of the 
study of arithmetic as a science is to enable the pupil to 
see for himself the absolute truth of every statement he is 
called upon to beheve. If he accepts any statement as 
* Educational Review, Vol, V. pp. 50, 51. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF ARITHMETIC. 28 1 

true merely because some one says it is, the study of the 
science of arithmetic is so far a sheer waste of time. 

(2) Different Kinds of First-hand Knowledge. — It 

should also illustrate the difference between two kinds of 
first-hand knowledge. In his study of nature the pupil has 
had constant experience of one kind of first-hand knowl- 
edge. He has seen for himself that certain leaves are in- 
jured by insects, that a certain number of days in a month 
are rainy, etc., and has based certain conclusions on his ob- 
servations. But in this case he sees with the bodily eye ; in 
that of arithmetic, with his mind's eye. The reasoning 
based on the former is inductive and the conclusions, as 
the pupil chscovers, are often erroneous. The reasoning 
based on the latter is deductive and the conclusions are 
absolutely certain. Now it is not possible to teach arith- 
metic as a science without making this distinction clear. 
Those who imagine that induction has any place in the 
teaching of scientific arithmetic deceive themselves. We 
do not learn why things are as they are by concluding 
that since a given method has led to a correct result in a 
number of cases it will do so in all cases. Unless the pupil 
sees that in his arithmetical reasoning he is starting from 
absolutely certain premises and proceeding by absolutely cer- 
tain steps to absolutely certain conclusions, he is not learning 
arithmetic as a science. But if he sees this, he has learned 
a fact, gained a point of view, of immense importance. 

Arithmetic as a Science the Product of Deductive 

Reasoning It is implied in what has been said that the 

study of arithmetic as a science is a constant exercise of 
deductive reasoning. As Sir Joshua Fitch has it, " It is a 



282 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

discipline in closeness and continuity of thought. . . . 
The proper office of arithmetic is to serve as training in 
elementary logic. ... It is by arithmetic more than by 
any other subject in a school course that the art of think- 
ing — consecutively, closely, logically — can be effectually 
taught." ^ 

Too Much Time Given to Arithmetic. — It is because 
of the great importance that is attached to this kind of 
training that our schools lay such stress on the study 
of arithmetic. But we have already stated reasons for 
believing that its value has been greatly overrated. Few 
opinions are more universally accepted by thinkers of every 
school than that the notion which Sir Joshua Fitch evi- 
dently entertained that the reasoning power gained from 
the study of arithmetic is equally available for every sub- 
ject — that, for example, the expert reasoner in arithmetic 
will be an expert reasoner in politics — is false. If it 
is false, the enormous time given to the study can no 
longer be justified. 

The Grammar School the University of the Masses • 

That it can be done is, to say the least, doubtful. The 
grammar school, let it be reiterated, is the university of 
the masses. The masses will either get a taste for history, 
literature, and the study of nature there, or they will not 
get it at all. They will get there the elevation and human- 
ization that result from acquaintance with some of the 
best thoughts of the race, or they will not get it at all. 
They will build for themselves a world of law and order 
and beauty and goodness there, or they will not do it at all. 

1 Fitch, Lectures on Teaching, pp. 320, 321. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF ARITHMETIC. 2S3 

They will learn there that the best life is not a life of im- 
pulse and appetite and passion, but a life controlled by 
reason, or they will not learn it at all. 

To jeopardize all this by devoting so much time to the 
study of arithmetic as a science is, we repeat, a doubt- 
ful procedure. The question is not whether the study of 
the science of arithmetic is valuable, but whether the 
results to which it leads are of more value than those 
of the subjects it displaces. The school life of the ele- 
mentary pupil is very short, and it is the bounden duty of 
those who have charge of his interests to see that it is 
taken up not merely with what is good, but with what is 
best. And one of the most important questions American 
school superintendents have to consider is whether it is 
not incumbent upon them, as rapidly as public opinion will 
permit, to ignore arithmetic as a science in order that the 
time it- occupies may be given to more liberalizing and 
more genuinely educative subjects. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. State the difference between arithmetic as a science and as an 
art. 

2. What is the educational value of arithmetic as an art? 

3. Show that definite knowledge is more useful than indefinite 
knowledge. 

4. What does the ordinary theory regard as the educational value 
of arithmetic ? 

5. How can we make preparation to live? 

6. Contrast two methods of teaching arithmetic as an art. 

7. Show how arithmetic may give definiteness to the concepts of 
elementary science and to ideas acquired out of school. 

8. What is meant by form subjects? 

9. What is the difference between the incidental and the acci- 
dental teaching of form subjects? 



284 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

10. State at length the educational value of arithmetic as a science. 

11. Why is its value often overrated? 

12. What fallacy underlies the reasoning of Sir Joshua Fitch ? 

13. Is too much time given to arithmetic, and why? 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Are all our concepts of a quantitative character? 

2. Can arithmetic give definiteness to all our concepts without 
exception ? 

3. Can you make a quantitative statement of the value of arith- 
metic either as a science or as an art ? 

4. Can you make a quantitative statement of the educational value 
of any subject whatever? 

5. Will psychology and pedagogy ever become exact sciences? 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURE STUDY. 

Nature Study (i) Increases our Interest in Nature. — 

The educational value of nature study is threefold : first, 
it increases our interest in nature ; secondly, it develops a 
realization of law and cultivates a tendency to open-mind- 
edness ; thirdly, it makes those who have a special apti- 
tude for it aware of the fact, and develops such an interest 
in the subject as tends to stimulate them to specialization 
in one or another of its phases. 

As to the first point, it is of course evident that a scien- 
tific intei'est and an aesthetic interest in nature study are 
widely different things. The aesthetic interest is the result 
of the appeal Nature makes to our sense of beauty ; the 
scientific, the result of the appeal she makes to our desire 
to know. If, in the case of the average man, we had to 
choose between them, it is at least doubtful whether it 
would not be wise to sacrifice the scientific to the aesthetic 
interest. The life of the average man is probably more 
enriched by the capacity to derive pleasure from listening 
to the knell of the parting day, from watching the lowing 
herd as it winds slowly over the meadow, than by a scien- 
tific interest in nature. But the two interests are in no 
wise antagonistic. And if the teacher of the nature sub- 
jects be herself a lover of nature, if she looks upon the 
changes that pass over the face of nature as spring blooms 
into summer, and summer fades into autumn, and autumn 

285 



286 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

gives way to winter, with something of the same fondness 
with which the mother watches the changes in her child as 
she traverses the road to womanhood, there is no danger 
that the aesthetic interest of her pupils will suffer through 
a development of their scientific interest. Not only will 
the bugs and grasshoppers and butterflies, the trees and 
leaves, the soil and minerals, claim her attention, but the 
broad valleys, the gently sloping hills, the sycamores bend- 
ing over running streams and, as it were, gravely bowing 
to the trees on the other side ; and her enthusiastic love 
of nature will be as contagious as her intense interest in 
science. 

(2) Develops a Realization of Law and Cultivates Open- 
mindedness. — The study of nature is also valuable because 
it forces us to realize that there is such a thing as law, and 
makes us feel that in order to learn what the laws of nature 
are we must go to nature with the open-mindedness of 
little children. Every good, as we know, has its price. 
And part of the price we pay for the benefits of the study 
of .literature is the tendency to blur the contrast between 
thought and fact, between opinion and reality, between 
what is and what seems to be. No one can help reading 
himself, so to speak, into an author. If he cannot do it, the 
author is unintelligible. Many able and cultivated men 
find Wordsworth's poem on Immortality meaningless 
because they have never had the experiences which the 
poem tries to describe. It is, of course, impossible to draw 
the line between experiences which really furnish the key 
to an author's meaning and those which merely seem to do 
so. And the author is never there to laugh at us for our 
blundering. Shakspere rests quietly in his grave while 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURE STUDY. 287 

one critic says he means this, another that, a third some- 
thing different, each confident that he is right. 

Now this tendency to undue confidence in one's opin- 
ions, the inevitable result of undue speciahzation in litera- 
ature, is sternly repressed by the intelligent study of nature. 
Nature, unlike most authors whom the boy studies at 
school, is not dead. She stands face to face with him. 
If he forms an errroneous opinion of her meanings, that 
opinion will be discredited unless, indeed, like the people 
of the Middle Ages and some modern Rip Van Winkles, 
he is content to study nature from a book. There results, 
therefore, from the right sort of nature study a docility, 
an open-mindedness, a willingness to hold one's opinions in 
suspense, a sense of the difhculty of learning what is true, 
and of the great liability to error, which is an exceedingly 
valuable trait of mind. Few intellectual obstacles hinder 
the living of a rational life as greatly as does excessive con- 
fidence in one's own opinions. To live a truly rational life 
it is not only necessary to feel as well as know that we 
must be guided by the truth, but that the truth is difficult 
of access, and to be approached only by those who seek 
it with humility. 

This lesson may be enforced not only by the pupil's own 
work, but by the biographical studies of scientific men 
which should accompany his nature study. For example, 
take Kepler, who formed seventeen different hypotheses 
and made seventeen sets of laborious observations and dififi- 
cult computations before he discovered the shape of the 
path of the planets ; or Newton, who set aside his hy- 
pothesis for fifteen years until reasoning from more accurate 
data convinced him that he had indeed discovered the law 
which governs the motions of the material universe. 



288 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

(3) Incites to Specialization Along the Lines of Natural 
Bent. — A third benefit to be derived from nature study is 
that those who have a special aptitude for it are incited to 
speciaHzation in some department of natural science. That 
this is highly desirable is evident from three points of view. 
Ignore the pupil altogether, consider the matter simply 
from the point of view of society, and it is clear that 
society needs to have its work done by those who have a 
natural bent for it. All legitimate work is work which 
satisfies a need of society, and the more its needs are sat- 
isfied by those who have a special aptitude for it, the less 
the waste of energy, the greater the productivity, the less 
each member of society has to pay to have his wants sup- 
plied. 

Ignore society in turn, and consider the matter from the 
point of view of the individual, and from that of the indi- 
vidual simply as desirous of promoting his material well- 
being. Evidently the best way for a man to earn money 
is to do the work he is best fitted to do. The briefless 
lawyers, the doctors who have no patients, the preachers 
without charges, are in the majority of cases men who 
are in the wrong occupation. They are trying to fill a 
role for which they have no capacity. They are working 
with a fraction of themselves, and that not the best. The 
work for which nature designed us is the work in which we 
can put the most of ourselves and in which, therefore, we 
can achieve the largest results. 

Once more. Ignore the material interests of the pupil, 
assume that he has no livelihood to earn, and it is still true 
that the wisest course to pursue in promoting his interests 
is to have him do the work he is best fitted to do. His 
life of thought and feeling, his life as a human being, will 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURE STUDY. 289 

be better worth the Hving through doing the work in 
which he can put the most of himself. Aristotle said that 
the object of education is to prepare us for the right use 
of leisure. The modern, democratic interpretation of that 
suggestive remark is that the object of education is to 
prepare us to do the work that best promotes our interests 
as human beings, for such work is, to all intents and pur- 
poses, leisure rightly employed. From every point of 
view, therefore, it is evident that the more the school does 
to make its pupils conscious of their special aptitudes, the 
more it promotes all the interests of the individual and 
consequently those of society. 



QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What two different sorts of interest may one have in the study 
of nature ? 

2. Show that these are not antagonistic. 

3. What is meant by " realization of law ".^ 

4. What evil must we guard against in the teaching of literature? 

5. What benefits may the pupil derive from the study of the lives 
of men of science ? 

6. State the three reasons for specialization. 

7. What did Aristotle say is the object of education, and in what 
sense is it true? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. What quality in the teacher will be most effective in arousing a 
scientific or an aesthetic interest in nature, and why? 

2. Can you imagine a state of society in which every one would be 
working for his livelihood, and in which nevertheless Aristotle's 
ideal would be realized ? 

3. What is it that makes leisure really desirable? 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. 

The details of school management would require a vol- 
ume. This chapter will be restricted to the statement of 
two general principles, in the hope that they may be of 
some service in determining the " lay of the land." 

The Object of Discipline. — The primarily important pur- 
pose of that part of school management which has to do 
with government is the development of character. It is 
of course true that the rules of the school grow out of its 
needs. Pupils are forbidden to whisper, change their seats 
during school hours, make unnecessary noise, etc., because 
these acts interfere with the work of the school. But the 
boy who breaks the rules is guilty of a more serious charge : 
interference with the development of his own character. 

The Function of Education. — Our mental life begins 
with a mass of self-seeking anarchistic impulses. It is the 
function of education to suppress the anarchist within us, 
to develop those sides of our nature which make us regard 
the feelings and rights of others. We say " suppress the 
anarchist within us." Every form of wrong-doing is a 
form of selfishness, and selfishness is only a seeking of the 
private, lower, individual self at the expense of the rational, 
ethical, social self. Now anarchy is the apotheosis of the 
privat-e self. Its basal principle is that neither in the 

290 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. 29 I 

school nor in life must any violence be done to it. Re- 
garding it as the only true self, repudiating the social self 
as having only conventional reality, it finds, like Rousseau, 
authority pernicious in education, and government per- 
nicious in life. 

The Principle of Anarchy. — Between the principle of 
anarchy — that the true self is the private self — and the 
opposite principle — that the true self is the social self — 
there is no common ground. A man may hold that the 
social self exists merely for the sake of the private self ; 
that the best way to promote the interests of his private 
self is to profess, and perhaps to have, a certain amount of 
regard for the interests of society ; that society had its 
origin in the desire of men to promote the interests of 
their private selves, and that it has no other justification. 
In that case he, like the anarchist, believes that his private 
self is his true self, and the only essential difference 
between them is as to the means to be employed to attain 
their common end. 

On the other hand, a man may hold that although the 
social self is a true self, the private self is also, since, in so 
far as the enjoyments of the individual have no anti-social 
tendency, he has a right to them whether they positively 
tend to promote the well-being of society or not. Undoubt- 
edly. But a private self that asks leave to assert its claims 
of the social self may fairly be regarded as a part of the 
latter. 

The Problem of the School. — The problem, therefore, 
before the school from this point of view is the subordina- 
ation of the private to the social self, the substitution of a 



292 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



life governed by reason for a life governed by impulse. 
The first step towards the solution of this problem is the 
strenuous assertion of what from the point of view of the 
child is purely arbitrary authority. The mother cannot 
explain to her babe the reason for her requirements. The 
child has no reason, is a mere creature of impulses and 
sensations, and when the light of reason begins to dawn it 
is for long much too dim to enable him to see the reason 
for what is demanded of him at home and at school. But 
the problem which both teacher and parent are endeavoring 
to solve compels tJicm to see that their requirements are 
not arbitrarily made, that as rational beings they have no 
choice in the matter. Precisely as an intelligent man is 
coerced by the evidence to believe in the conclusions of 
geometry, so parent and teacher alike should be compelled 
by their regard for the child to impose upon him such 
tasks, subject him to such restraints, as they do. Spirit, 
said Plato, is the natural ally of reason, and a child will 
never live a rational life unless he comes to love it. But 
how is a love for it to be developed .? Not by telling him 
how beautiful such a life is, and that he ought to live it, 
but by keeping him face to face with a life that is actually 
controlled by reason. 

The Child may Learn to Love a Rational Life (i) Because 
He Wishes to Be Like His Teacher. — Such a life, lived by 
those who have authority over him, tends to bring about 
this result in two ways. In the first place, if his parents 
and teachers are compelled by their reason to require of 
him what they do, as fast as his own reason develops he 
will become aware of the fact. This will make him feel 
that all their requirements spring from the same source. 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. 



293 



and will Strengthen his impulse towards obedience — and 
all the more because the conscientious parent or teacher 
will be certain to be the object of enthusiastic affection. 
But loving a person who is felt to be guided by reason 
is a long stride towards loving a rational life : whom the 
child loves he wishes to resemble, and when he begins to 
be aware that his mother is governed by reason, not by 
caprice, he begins to form a new ideal. When this step 
is taken there is a change in the persons who are playing 
important parts in the drama of the child's life. Before 
this the child has been governed by motives growing out 
of his private self. The mother and teacher have been 
able only to appeal to his lower nature ; there has been 
nothing else to appeal to. Now the higher nature begins 
to assert itself ; the rational self becomes the ally of the 
teacher. 

(2) Because his Teacher Loves a Rational Life. — Not 

only so : the teacher who is guided by reason in his deal- 
ings with his pupils yields to its dictates because he loves 
a rational life. But we have seen already, in our study 
of imitation, that the only effective way to kindle emotion 
is by emotion. Now the teacher who lives a rational life 
cannot fail to present to the child's imitative nature a copy 
which he will have a disposition to imitate. 

The Influence of Imitation on Roman Education. — The 
importance of this influence on the life of the child it 
would be diflicult to overestimate. The history of educa- 
tion teaches no more important lesson than the fact that 
the most powerful force in the education of a people has 
not been found in the schools. Few students of Roman 



294 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



history would hesitate to say that the period when Rome 
was at her best was when she had no schools, and that the 
period when her sun was on the point of setting was when 
her education was thoroughly organized and when her 
schools were liberally supported. Why is this .-' It is 
because the beliefs and ideals of the young are determined 
by the beliefs and ideals of those with whom they come in 
contact. In the day of Rome's greatness the typica 
Roman believed that the thing to do was to live for Rome 
and, if need be, die for her. This universal belief com- 
municated itself, through the imitative side of human 
nature, to the rising generation. In the day of Rome's 
degeneracy the typical Roman lord felt that the thing to 
do was to live for himself, and that the true way to live 
for himself was to look after his income, decorate his name 
with empty titles, write Ciceronian Latin on any subject, 
no matter how frivolous, and make correct speeches on 
any occasion. And the same imitative propensity imposed 
this belief on successive generations, and made the Romans 
an easy prey to the barbarians of the North. 

The Teacher and the Source of the Ideals of the Pupil. — 

The conclusion of the whole matter, then, is that as the 
teacher reaches the intellect of his pupils through his own 
intellect, so he reaches their emotions through his own 
emotions. Now it is our emotional nature — what we 
love — that gives us our ideals. Only, therefore, as a 
teacher really so loves a rational life as to make his love 
for it the determining principle of his own life will he be 
able to develop a love for the same kind of life in his 
pupils. 

From this it is evident that the teacher is the great 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. 295 

educative factor in the school. We have discussed at 
great length the educational values of the various school 
subjects: and now it appears that what in the school has 
greatest educational value is a subject not on the pro- 
gramme — the teacher ; also, that what in the teacher 
touches most directly and powerfully the deepest springs 
of the child's life is not his knowledge or his reasoning 
power, but his effective ideals — those ideals that determine 
the course of his life. If the regulations of the school 
and his own life in it spring from his desire to live a truly 
rational life, then indeed is he exerting upon his pupils an 
influence of incalculable value. Some of his demands will 
be certain to be unwise, some of his opinions will be 
erroneous. For purity of motive is no guarantee of 
immunity from error. But if his motives are pure, his 
ideal untainted by selfishness, mere errors of intellect will 
not weaken the influence exerted by his ideal. 

There emerge, then, from our study of school govern- 
ment two conclusions : its aim is the development of the 
pupil's higher self and the subordination of the lower self 
to it ; the chief means to this end, so far as the school is 
concerned, is such a subordination of the lower to the 
higher self in the life of the teacher. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is the object of discipline? 

2. " Anarchy is the apotheosis of the private self." Explain. 

3. What is the underlying principle of anarchy? 

4. What is the difference between the private and the social self? 

5. " Spirit is the natural ally of reason." Explain. 

6. What do you understand by a rational life ? 

7. State clearly the two ways in which a child may come to love a 
rational life. 



296 A BROADER ELExMENTARY EDUCATION. 

8. Show how imitation was a factor in Roman education. 

9. Show that the teacher is the great educative factor in the 
school. 

10. What two conclusions emerge from our study of school govern- 
ment? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. What is the creed of the anarchists? 

2. In what sense is it true that our mental life begins with anar- 
chistic impulses? 

3. State and define the two kinds of imitation discussed in earlier 
chapters. 

4. Which of the two has the more important bearing on the con- 
clusions of this chapter, and why ? 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE SMALL HIGH SCHOOL. 

Having completed our survey of elementary education, 
this book might fitly end. But the small high school — 
the high school whose faculty consists of a principal and 
one or two assistants — is so closely connected with the 
elementary school that it may almost be considered as 
forming an integral part of it. It may not, therefore, be 
deemed inappropriate to make a few general remarks in 
relation thereto. 

The General Principle upon which the Proper Work of 
the Small High School Depends. — The general principle 
which should determine all its work will hardly be called 
in question : inasmuch as it is the finishing school of the 
vast majority of its students, its course of study should be 
such as to give to those who are to go no farther the 
utmost possible benefit. To require the many to study 
Latin, for example, because it will be of service to the few 
who go to college, to deprive the many of the opportunity 
of studying political economy because the few can study 
it at better advantage in college, is to sacrifice the interests 
of the many to those of the few. But this is imperatively 
forbidden by our general principle, which requires us to do 
in the high school all those things that will promote the 
interests of the many, and to leave undone no-thing that 
will give them a better education. 

297 



298 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

The Large High School not a Model for the Small 
High School. — While this general principle determines 
absolutely and without qualification the work of the small 
high school, it does not so determine the work of the large 
high school. The high school in the large cities and 
towns may have a faculty sufficient for the needs of those 
who are going to college, as well as for those who are not. 
But our general principle forbids the school to lay less 
emphasis upon the course arranged for the many than 
upon that designed for the few. If, for example, it takes 
less pains to get thoroughly trained teachers for the former 
course than for the latter, it is false to the best interests 
of the community that supports it. 

It follows from this that in arranging its course of study 
the small high school cannot take the large high school as 
a model. The latter, by means of its larger resources, 
can make provision for the students who are going to col- 
lege as well as for those who are not ; the former can only 
make provision for those whose education is not to 
extend beyond the high school. That which will promote 
the interests of the many, therefore, and that alone, must 
determine the work of the school. 

The Report of the Committee of Ten on the Identity 
of the Needs of Those Who Are and Those Who Are Not 
Going to College. — I am aware, of course, that in postulat- 
ing a difference between the needs of the two classes of 
students, I am putting myself in a position of antagonism to 
very formidable authority. The body of experts known as 
the Committee of Ten unanimously decided that the needs 
of the two classes of students are identical. But in spite 
of any authority we must go whither the argument leads us. 



THE SMALL HIGH SCHOOL. 299 

The Small High School Should Teach (i) Political 
Economy. — What is the argument ? That every Ameri- 
can citizen ought to be acquainted with at least the 
elements of political economy. Since the days of Recon- 
struction we have not had a presidential campaign in 
which the issue has not been either wholly or partly eco- 
nomic. Shall we have a high or a low protective tariff ? 
Shall we have the free and unlimited coinage of silver at 
the ratio of sixteen to one or shall we have the gold stan- 
dard ? Shall legislation aim to control or destroy trusts .'' 
These are some of the questions upon which Americans 
have been expressing opinions at the polls for the last 
twenty-five years. Evidently no one has a right to opin- 
ions upon such questions who has not an acquaintance 
with at least the elements of political economy. But 
political economy is a difficult subject, much too difficult 
for the "elementary school — so difficult that it is wise to 
postpone the study of it until the college period if the 
education of the student is to continue beyond the high 
school. But if he is not going to college, surely the high 
school ought to impart the rudiments of the science. The 
high school ought to do what it can to enable him to 
distinguish between the demagogic utterances of profes- 
sional politicians and the deliberate judgments of trained 
statesmen. 

(2) American History. — The same argument may be 
made in reference to American history. The American 
citizen ought to know more about it than he can learn in 
the elementary or high school, more than his mind will 
enable him to grasp in either of those stages of his de- 
velopment. The well-being of the country at important 



300 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



crises of its history may easily be conceived to depend on 
whether pubUc opinion is guided by a fundamental knowl- 
edge of American history. Now because of the difficulty 
of the subject, the intending college student may perhaps 
postpone the further study of it until he enters college. 
But shall the student whose education closes with the high 
school have no opportunity there to employ his maturer 
powers in enlarging his grasp of the subject .■" 

But (3) Not a Foreign Language. — Again, there is a 
universal consensus of opinion to the effect that a college 
student should devote a part of his time to the study of 
foreign languages. And we have given reasons for believ- 
ing that the study of modern languages may be begun to 
advantage quite early in the elementary school. There 
can, therefore, be no doubt that the prevalent practice of 
requiring the high-school student who is going to college 
to give some time to the study of foreign languages is 
wise. 

But how about the student who is not going to college 1 
Is it worth his while to expend his time and energy in 
equipping himself with expensive tools that he will never 
use ? " O, but the literature to which the foreign language 
will give him access ! " The literature .-^ Were it not for 
the ability and character of the men who make this argu- 
ment one would not think it serious. Has the English 
language no literature .'' Have we not a Shakspere, a 
Milton, a Wordsworth, a Burns, a Lowell, a Hawthorne, 
an Emerson .-^ Does the boy who learns with great labor 
to read a page of Vergil in an hour really amuse himself 
with Latin literature } Does the German or French stu- 
dent instruct himself by reading Goethe or Moh^re ? If 



THE SMALL HIGH SCHOOL. 3OI 

the men who make this argument would leave their 
studies once in a while, if they would spend a little time in 
the world, there would be some hope of their learning that 
not one per cent of the high-school students who do not 
go to college ever read one line of a foreign language after 
they lay down their text-books. " But the discipline ! " 
It must be admitted that the student of a foreign language 
does get some discipline from his work. The question is 
whether he gets enough to pay him for what it costs, 
whether he gets enough to compensate him for the inevi- 
table ignorance of important subjects which it deprives 
him of the opportunity of studying, whether it is a satis- 
factory substitute for the discipline which he might get 
from the study of subjects which have a vital bearing on 
life. 

We are dealing here with concepts which do not admit 
of quantitative statement. We cannot say that the bene- 
fits to be derived from the study of foreign languages con- 
sist of 69 parts of a given unit, while those of the studies 
which it displaces consist of 1 191. Whatever opinion any 
student of the subject may form of it, the nature of the 
argument will not permit us to say to him, " Your con- 
clusion is demonstrably incorrect." But the conception 
w-hich the author of this book has of the vital relation 
between the study of purely English subjects and rational 
living leaves him, at any rate, in no doubt as to the 
true conclusion. For all these reasons, therefore, we 
hold that the needs of the two classes of students are dif- 
ferent. 

The Course of Study of the Small High School to be 
Determined in Part by the Capacity of its Teachers and by 



302 A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

its Equipment. — What, then, should be the character of 
the course of study of the small high school ? This ques- 
tion cannot be answered simply by considering the needs 
of the student. We must take account, as well, of the 
capacities of his teachers, and of the equipment of the 
school. It is impossible, for example, to teach physics and 
chemistry properly without a laboratory. If, therefore, the 
community is unable to provide but one laboratory, but 
one of these subjects should be taught. It is impossible, 
also, for one man to teach well a half-dozen widely different 
subjects. The small high school is bound, therefore, to 
confine itself to such a range of subjects as its small fac- 
ulty may reasonably be expected to teach effectively. 

English and American History should be Substituted for 
General History. — The application of this principle ex- 
cludes general history. The study of that subject in any 
high school which has not an ample library and which does 
not admit of a high degree of specialization on the part of 
its teachers is sure to degenerate into a mere memorizing 
of dates and disconnected events. The time which the 
small high school gives to the study of history should be 
devoted to the history of England and that of the United 
States. These two subjects are so closely related that 
they may almost be said to form a single whole. And if 
time enough is given to the study of them — at least a 
year should be allotted to each — the ambitious teacher 
can make his capable students acquainted with the princi- 
ples that underhe the development of the English and 
American peoples. The teacher of history should also 
give instruction in political economy, since each of these 
subjects may be made to throw light on the other. 



THE SMALL HIGH SCHOOL. 303 

Summary of the Course of Study. — Some mathematics 
should be taught in the small high school. But for rea- 
sons already stated a number of times — that the reason- 
ing power developed by the study of mathematics is chiefly 
of use in the further study of that subject — the aim of the 
small high school should be to diminish rather than in- 
crease the amount of time usually given to it. The school 
should occupy itself chiefly with such sciences as its appli- 
ances make it possible to teach in the most effective way : 
English and American history, political economy, and liter- 
ature. The capable student who spends three or four 
years on these subjects can study them in such a way as 
to make them really educative. History will enlarge his 
knowledge of human nature, will give him an inspiring 
acquaintance with the great men of the English-speaking 
peoples, and a vivid appreciation of the struggles which 
the race has undergone in order to secure the blessings 
of a free, constitutional government. Political economy 
will make him acquainted with some of the laws that 
govern men in their economic relations. His study of 
Hterature will introduce him to those ideals of life which 
are embodied in the literatures of England and America, 
will teach him that there are moral laws upon the observ- 
ance of which human welfare depends, will develop in him 
a taste for good reading which will be a permanent posses- 
sion and a continual solace. His study of science will 
make him realize that behind the shifting, changing things 
of sense there are abiding realities, and that the material 
welfare of the race depends upon taking account of them. 
In a word, the intelligent, appreciative study of such 
subjects is calculated to touch the mind of the student 
on every side. It enlarges his knowledge of principles, 



304 



A BROADER ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



develops his reasoning power, purifies and elevates his 
ideals. By helping the student to realize what the really 
good and great things of life are, and what methods he 
must employ to reach them, the small high school may 
teach directly the noblest of all arts — the art of living. 

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 

1. What is meant by the small high school? 

2. Upon what principle does its work depend? 

3. Why may not the large high school be taken as a model for the 
small one? 

4. Why should the small high school teach political economy? 

5. Why should it teach American history? 

6. Why should it not teach a foreign language ? 

7. State and answer the arguments that are urged to show that 
students who are not going to college should study a foreign language. 

8. What have the capacity of teachers and the equipment of the 
school to do with determining the course of study of the small high 
school? 

9. Why should not the small high school teach general history? 
10. Summarize the course of study of the small high school, and 

enumerate the benefits to be derived from it. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 

1. Have you an intimate acquaintance with any small high school, 
and, if so, does that school in your opinion illustrate what the text 
says of the necessary character of the study of general history therein ? 

2. Are you acquainted with a single high-school graduate who, 
without having gone to college, instructs and amuses himself by read- 
ing the literature of a foreign language ? 

3. Do you believe that any one can form an intelligent opinion as 
to how he ought to vote if he has no knowledge of political economy? 

4. Do you accept the conclusions of this chapter ? If not, state 
the reasons why you do not. 

5. If you do accept them, what obstacle prevents the reorganiza- 
tion of the small high schools of your community along the proposed 
lines? 



Our Own Publications 



Cloth unless otherwise stated 




31-33-35 West Fifteenth Street 

Between Fifth and Sixth Avenues 



Schoolbooks 0/ all publishers at one start 




G>llege Men's 3-Minute Declamations. Up-to-date 
selections from live men like Chauncey 
Depew, Hewitt, Gladstone, Cleveland, 
Presidents Eliot (Harvard), and Carter 
(Williams), and others. New material 
with vitality in it for prize speaking. 
Very popular. Eighth edition. $I.00» 

College Maids' 3-Minute Readings. 
Up-to-date recitations from living men 
and women. On the plan of the popular 
College Men's 3-minute Declamations, and 
on the same high plane. 6th edition. $J.OO. 

Pieces for Prize Speaking Contests. Volume I. Over 
one hundred pieces that have actually taken prizes in 
prize speaking contests. 4th edit. Successful. $J.25. 

Pieces for Prize Speaking Contests. Volume II. $1.25. 

Piecjs for Every Occasion. Including 
"special da} s." Something new, $}.25* 

Handy Pieces to Speak. Single pieces and 
dialogues. Primary, 20 cts. ; Inter- 
mediate, 20 cts.; Advanced, 20 cts. 
All three for jo cts. On separate 
cards. 108 selections in all. 

Acme Declamation Book. Single pieces 
and dialogues. For boys and girls of 
all ages ; all occasions. Paper, 30 cts, ; 
cloth, 50 cts. Many editions sold. 

Pros and Cons, Complete debates of the affirmative 
and negative of the stirring questions of 
the day. A decided hit. This is another 
book invaluable not only to high-school 
and college students, but also to every 
other person who aspires to converse 
engagingly on the topics of the day. Our 
foreign policy, the currency, the tariff, 
immigration, high license, woman suffrage, 
penny postage, transportation, trusts, 
department stores, municipal ownership of 
franchises, government control of telegraph. 
Both sides of these and many other questions com- 
pletely debated. Directions for organizing and 
conducting debating society, with by-laws and parlia- 
mentary rules. No other book like it. Enlarged ed. $1.50. 





Songs of All the Colleges. Words and music throughout. 
A welcome gift tn any home I Everyone likes a college 
song, and this book is an ideal gift to place on the 
piano for one's friends to enjoy, even though one 
sings not himself. Attractive and durable cloth. $1.50. 

Neui edition with 104 songs added for 67 other colleges Over 
seventy college presidents have purchased this volume to have at 
their homes, for the students on social occasions. Fourteen edi- 
tions have gone into many thousands of homes. If you have a 
piano hut do not play^ the pianola and other " piano-players" 
will play many 0/ these songs for you and your friends to sing. 

Compiled by college men, endorsed by college 
presidents, 'rah-'rah'd by college students, brothered 
by college alumni, sistered by college alumnae, adopted 
and programed by college glee clubs everywhere ; 
by local clubs, choral societies, and singing classes. 
Contains all the dear old familiar songs, as well as 
the popular new songs typical of alma mater in 
colleges east, west, south, north. Many 
old favorite tunes with new catchy, up- 
to-date words — serious, sentimental, 
humorous ; also the Wak, 'rah kind. 
Yale men know, and the New Haven Union says: 
"The question of what in the world to give a 
friend is solved by the publication of songs of 
ALL THB coLi EGKS, which is suitable alike for 
the collegian of the past, for the student of ihe 
present, and for the boy (or girl) with hopes, 
also for the music-loving sister and a fellow's best 
girl." Another college paper : " 'J'hey ring 
true/'' Says the Principal of a famous private 
school: "/? incites to college." 

Songsof the Western Colleges. Durable cloth binding. $1.25. 

Songs of the Eastern Colleges. Novel, durable cloth, $1.25. 
These two books present an ideally complete por- 
trayal of the musical and social side, the joyous side, 
of the student life in our Western and Eastern 
colleges respectively. Plenty of the old favorites of 
a// colleges, while crowded with the new songs. 

To own all three above books is to possess the most complete, 
the most adequate illustration ever attempted of this phase of the 
genius, the spirit of Young America. 

New Songs for College Glee Clubs. Paper. 50 cents. 

Twenty humorous hits, besides others, sentimental and 
serious. Not a selection but has been sung by some glee 
club locally to the delight of an " encoring audience." 
Glee Club leaders will appreciate a collection every piece in 
which, by the severe test of both rehearsal and concert, is right 
— the musical notation, the harmony of the voice parts, the 
syllabification, the rhythm, the rhyme, the instrumentation, and 
last, but not least with audiences, the catckonativeness . 




How to Use the Voice in Reading and Speaking. By 
Ed. Amherst Ott, head of the School of Oratory, 
Drake University. Suitable for class work. $1.25, 
How to Gesture. By Professor Ott. Revised edit. $1.00. 
Ten \^eeks' Course in Elocution. With numerous 
selections for illustration and practice. Simple and 
practical. For classes, or self-teaching. $J.25. 
Fcnno's Science and Art of Elocution. Standard. $1.25. 
New Parliamentary Manual. By Edmond Palmer, A. B. , 
instructor in Civics and Economics in the Engle- 
wood High School, Chicago. A manual designed to 
be used as a text book in high schools and colleges. 
The special feature of this book is the new and 
original table enabling one to decide at a glance any 
question arising on the subject of parliamentary 
procedure. 75 cents. Wholly nev. 
How to Organize and Conduct a Meeting. 75 cents. 
Likes and Opposites. Synonyms and Opposites. To 
have at one's command a variety of equivalent words 
and their opposites is to possess an incalculable ad- 
vantage both in writing and speaking. 50 cents. 
Letter Writing. Rules for correct correspondence. 75 cts. 

_^ Punctuation Mastered in Twelve Lessons. 

Paper. 25 cents. 
Punctuation. Hinds & Noble's new Man- 
ual. Paper, 25 cents. 
New Speller. Hinds & Noble's new 
graded list of 5,000 words which one 
OTMi-Zknow how to spell. Useful. 25c. 
Bad English. Humiliating " breaks " cor- 
rected. Paper. 30 cents. 
Common Errors in Writing and Speaking. 
50 cents. Invaluable vade mecutn. 
Composition "Writing Made Easy. Very successful. 
Five grades, viz. : A, B, C, D, E, 20 cents fac/i. All 
five for 75 cents. Arranged on separate cards. 
1000 Composition Subjects. Paper. 25 cents. 
Orthography and Orthoepy. By Isaac W. dinger. 

Adapted for class use. Boards. 50 cents. 
Complete Class Record-Book, Hinds & Noble's new 
register, with several new and very useful features. 
Twenty weeks. Arranged by John J. Quinn. 50cents, 
Smith's New Class Register. Long the Standard. 50 cts. 
Smith's New Astronomy. Illus. Quarto. Boards, 90 cts. 
Coon's Civil Government. For N. Y. State. 75 cents. 
Constitution of U. S. in Eng,, Ger., Fr. Pa. 25c. CIo. 50c 



i^k 


^^^^^^=f" 


i- 


K 


\ 


H"**** 




mH ^ 


• 


■ mmt^J^ 


& 


%^ 



How to Attract and Hold an Audience. Every clerjjy- 
man, every lawyer, every teacher, every man or woman 
occupying an official position, every citizen and every 
youth who is likely ever to have occasion in committee, 
or in public, to enlist the interest, to attract and hold 
the attention of one or more hearers, and convince 

them every person who ever has to, or is likely to 

have to "speak" to one or more listeners will find in 
our new book a clear, concise, complete handbook 
•which will enable him to succeed! $1.00 

Thorough, concise, methodical, replete with common sen«e, 
complete — these words describe fitly this new book; and in his 
logical method, in the crystal-like lucidity of his style, in his 
forceful, incisive, penetrating mastery of this subject, the author 
has at one bound placed himself on a plane with the very ablest 
teacher-authors of his day. 

Commencement Parts. "EiTorts" for all occasions 
Orations, addresses, valedictories, salutatories, class 
poems, class mottoes, after-dinner 
speeches, flag days, national holidays, 
class-day exercises. Alodels for every 
possible occasion in high-school and 
college career, every one of the " ef- 
forts "' being what some fellow has 
stood on his feet and actually delivered 
on a similar occasion — not what the 
compiler would say if he should 
happen to be called on for an ivy 
song or a response to a toast, or what 
not ; but what the fellow himself, when his turn 
came, did say ! Invaluable, indispensab'e to those 
preparing any kind of "effort.^' Unique. $1^0. 

New Dialogues and Plays. Life-like episodes from 
popular authors like Stevenson, Crawford, Mark 
Twain, Dickens, Scott, in the form of simple plays, 
with every detail explained as to dress, make-up, uten- 
sils furniture, etc. For schoolroom or parlor. '$i.50. 

A Southern Speaker. Selections from the orations, ad- 
dresses, and writings of the best known Southern ora- 
tors, Southern statesmen and authors, together with 
extracts from the rarest gems of literature, $1.00, 

Reading. A "Well-Planned Course. $1.00 By Caroline 
B. Le Row, compiler of " Pieces for Every Occasion." 
There has long been wanted a book of new selections 
for classes in reading, with lessons on the art of read- 
ing. Miss Le Row has designed to satisfy that desire. 




riowtoBecome Quick at Figures. Enlarged Edition. $1.00, 

How to Prepare for a Civil Service Examination^ with 
recent Examination Questions and 
the Answers. Cloth, 560 pages. $2.00. 
Abridged Edition, without Questions 
and Answers. Paper, 50 cents. 

Gfaig's Common School Questions, with 
Answers. Enlarged Edition. $1.50, 




Henry's High School Questions, with 
Answers. $1,50. 

Sherrill's New Normal Questions, with 
Answers. $},50, 

Qui2zism and Its Key. (Southwick.) $1.00. 

100 J Questions and Answers Series. Eleven Volumes, 
until recently published by the b. b. CO., each 50 cts. 
Theory and Practice Teaching. Revised. 
United States History. Revised. 
General History. Revised. 
Geography. Revised. 
English Grammar. Revised. 
Reading and Orthography. Revised. 
Physiology and Hygiene, Revised. 
Botany. New. 
Natural Philosophy. New. 
Arithmetic. Revised. 
Test Examples in Arith., with Answers. Revised. 

Moritz^s JOOO Questions. For Entrance Examinations, 
N. Y. High Schools, Normal College, College of City 
of N. Y., St. Francis Xavier College, West Point, 
Annapolis, and Civil Service. Paper. 30 cents. 

Answers to same. Paper. 50 cents. 

Recent Entrance Examination Questions. For the New 
York Normal College, the College of the City of 
New York, St. Francis Xavier College, Columbia 
College, the High Schools, Regents' Examinations, 
West Point,Annapolis,the Civil Service. Paper. 30 cts* 

Answers to Same. Paper. 50 cents. 

20th Century Educational Problems. By President Millar 
of Hendrix College. A timely discussion. $}.00. 

Henry'n Normal U. S. History. $t.00 



The FoundatJons of Education. By Dr. Levi Seele^, 
author ol " History of Education." In this book tlie 
author, an able teacher and superintendent of long 
experience, recounts from his experience for the bene- 
fit of teachers, those very many things, the avoiding 
which or the doing which, as the case may be, makes 
for failure or success accordingly. An inspiration — 
not only to the teacher, but also to the parent who 
reads it. To possess this book is like having a friend 
and counsellor always at one's elbow. $1.00, 

Best Methods of Teaching in Country Schools. $1.25. 
200 Lessons Outlined in Arithmetic, Geography, 

Grammar, United States History, I'hysiology. A 

splendid help for busy, time-pressed teachers. $1.25. 
Mist''.kes of Teachers corrected by common sense ( the 

famous Preston Papers). Solves difficulties not 

explained in textbooks, which daily 

perplex the conscientious teacher. 

New Enlarged Edition — third large 

printing. A veritable hit. $1,00. 
Pages Theory and Practice of Teaching. 

With Questions and Answers. Paper, 

50c. Cloth, $J, 7"he teachers' standbv. 

Roark's Outline of Pedagogy. A Working 

Manual. Aptly and briefly described 

as an indispensable tool for " teachers 

in the trenches." Interleaved for noti^s 
Gofdy's New Pedagogy. By the Author 

Kew Psychology, $J.OO. In preparation. 
Gordy's New Psychology. Familiar talks to teachers 

and parents on how to observe the child-mind. 

Questions on each Lesson. $1.25. 37th thousand! 
Stout*s Manual of Psvchology. Introduced in its first 

year into more than fourscore of colleges and 

universities in this country and in Canada. $1.50. 
The Pefceptionalist. Hamilton's Mental Science. By 

special typographical arrangement adapted to either 

a longer or shorter course. $2.00, 

Mackenzie's Manual of Ethics. The most successful 
le.xt-book on ethics ever published. Adopted and 
used in over two hundred Colleges, Universities and 
Normal Schools. A'enu Fottrth Edition. $1.50. 

Continental Copy Books. Numbers i to 7. 75 cents dozen. 




75 cents. 
of Gordy's 



Handy Literal Translations. Cloth, pocket. 50 cts. per vol. 

'■ To one who is reading the Classics, a literal 
translation is a conz'cnient and legitimate help: 
every well informed person "will read the Classics 
either in the original or in a translation.^^ 
Eighty-nine volumes, viz. : {Inter linear s other page). 

Csesar's Gallic War. The Seven Books. (For Book I trans- 
lated and completely parsed, see other page.) 

Caesar's Civil Wa.T. 

Catullus. 

Cicero's Brutus. 

Cicero's Defense of Roscius. 

Cicero De Officiis. 

Cicero On Old Age and Friendship. 

Cicero On Oratory. 

Cicero On The Nature of The Gods. 

Cicero's Orations. Four vs. Catiline, and others. (For 
Orations I, II, translated and parsed, see other page.) 

Cicero's Select Letters. 

Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. 

Cornelius Nepos, complete. 

Eutropius. 

Horace, complete. 

Juvenal's Satires, complete. 

Livy Books I and II. 

Livy, Books XXI and XXII. 

Lucretius, in preparation. 

Martial's Epigrams {paper'). 

Ovid's Metamorphoses, complete in two volumes. 

Phaedrus' Fables. 

Plautus' Captivi, and Mostellaria. 

Plautus' Pseudolus, and Miles Gloriosus, 

Plautus' Trinumraus, and Menaechmi. 

Pliny's Select Letters, complete in two volume*. 

Quintilian, Books X and XII. 

Roman Life in Latin Prose and Verse. 

Sallust's Catiline, and the Jugurthine War. 

Seneca On Benefits. 

Tacitus' Annals, the First Six Books. 

Tacitus' Germany and Agricola. 

Tacitus On Oratory. 

Terence : Andria, Adelphi and Phormio. 

Terence: Heautontimorumenos. 

Virgil's ^Eneid, the First Six Books. (For Book T translated 
««(/ completely scanned and parsed, see other page.) 

Virgil's Eclogues and Georgfics. 

Viri Rorase. 

jEschines Against Ctesiphon. 

jEschylus' Prometheus Bound ; Seven vs. Thebes. 

jEschylus' Agamemnon, 

Aristophanes' Clouds. 

Aristophanes' Birds, and Frogs. 

Demosthenes On the Crown. 

Demosthenes' Olynthiacs and Philippics. 

Euripides' Alcestis, and Electra. 

Euripides' Bacchantes, and Hercules Furens 

Euripides' Hecuba and Andromache. 

Euripides' Iphigenia In Aulis, In Tauns 

Euripides' Medea. 

Herodotus, Books VT and VII. 

Herodotus, Book VIII. 



Homer's Iliad, /A* First Six Boeks. 
Homer's Odyssey, the First Twelve Books. 
Isocrates' Panegyric, in preparation. 
Lucian's Select Dialogues, t%vo volumes. 
Lysias' Orations. The only Translation extant. 
Plato's Apology, Crito, and Ph^do. 
Plato's Gorgias. 
Plato's Laches (paper). 
Plato's Protagoras, and Euthyphron. 
Plato's Republic. 

Sophocles' CEdipus Tyrannus, Electra, and Antigone. 
Sophocles' CEdipus Coloneus. 
Thucydides, complete in two volumes. 

Xenophon's Anabasis, the First Four Books. {Book /, trans- 
lated and completely parsed, in prep. See other page.) 
Xenophon's Cyropsedia, complete in two volumes. 
Xenophon's Hellenica, and Symposium (The Banquet). 
Xenophon's Memorabilia, complete. 

Freytag's Die Journalisten {paper). 

Goethe's Egmont. 

Goethe's Faust. 

Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea. 

Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris. 

Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm. 

Lessing's Nathan The Wise. 

Lessing's Emilia Galotti. 

Schiller's Ballads. 

Schiller's Der Neffe als Onke 

Schiller's Maid of Orleans. 

Schiller's Maria Stuart. 

Schiller's Wallenstein's Death. 

Schiller's Wallenstem's Camp. 

Schiller's William Tell. 

Corneille's The Cid. 

Feuillet's Romance of a Poor Young Man. 

Racine's Athalie. 

Completely Parsed Caesar, Virgil, Cicero, etc., other page. 

Shortest Road to Caesar. Successful elem'y method. 75c. 

Caesar's Idioms. Complete, with Eng. equivalents. Pap. 25c. 

Cicero's Idioms. As found in " Cicero's Orations." Pap. 25c, 

Beginners' Latin Book. Hoch & Bert's. Many improve- 
ments over other books for beginners, one being the 
diagram to illustrate conditional sentences. $1.00. 

Beginners* Greek Book. I. P. Frisbee. Complete in 
itself. Applies the principles of correct teaching to 
the preparation (in one year) for reading Xenophon's 
Anabasis. Fully tested in many schools, $1,25. 

German Texts. With footnotes and Vocabulary: 
W. Tell, Jungfrauv. Orleans, Maria Stuart. Neffe als 
Onkel, Minna v. Barnhelm, Nathan der Weise, Emilia 
Galotti, Herm. und Dorothea. Eight vols. b^c\s,each. 

Ideophonic Texts. Wilhelm Tell, Act I. $1.00. 



Interlinear Translations. Classic Series. Cloth. 20 vol- 
umes. $L50 per volume. 

Caesar's Gallic War. Five Books. 

Same, Book I, Completely Parsed. See below. 
Cicero's Orations. Enlarged Edition. 

Same, Oration 1, Completely Parsed. See below. 
Same, Oration II, Completely Parsed. See below. 
Cicero On Old Age and f'riendship. 
Cornelius Nepos. 
Horace, complete. 
Livy. Books XXI and XXII. 
Ovid's Metamorphoses, complete, 
Sallust's Catiline, and Jugurthine War. 
Virgil's yEneid. First Six Books, Revised. 
Virgil's .i^neid. Complete, the Tv)elve Books. 

v'Eneid, Book I, Completely Parsed, Scanned. See below, 
Virgil's Eclogues, Gtorgicsand Last 6 Books .^neid, 
Xenophon's Anabasis. 
Xenophon's Memorabilia. 
Homer's Iliad, First Six Books, Revised, 
Demosthenes On The Crown. 
New Testament, /^?Mi7«/A^(?/<rjy complete ed. below. 
Completely Parsed Caesar. Book I. Each page bears 
interlinear translation, literal translation, parsing, 
grammatical references. The long vowels are indicated 
throughout, both in the Latin text part, and in the 
parsing. All at a glance without turning a leaf. An 
ideal aid, compact, complete, unique. $1.50. 
Completely Scanned-Parsed Virgil's Aeneidt Bk, I. Iden- 
tical in plan, scope, and arrangement with the Parsed 
CiTsar, while being scanned as well &s parsed. $1.50, 
Completely Parsed Cicero, I. The First Oration against 
Catiline. Same plan and scope as /"arjif^ Ojar. $1.50. 
Completely Parsed Cicero, 11. The {second Oration against 
(.'atiline. Same plan as above. $1.50. /n preparation. 
Completely Parsed Xenophon's Anab., I. $1.50. In prep. 
New Testament with Notes, and Lexicon. Interlinear 
Greek-Eng. , -with ICing James Version in the margins. 
Mew edition with finely discriminating presentation 
of the Synonyms of the Greek Testament. Cloth, $4 ; 
half leather, S5 ; Divinity Circuit, $6. 
Old Testament, Vol. I. Genesis and Exodus. Interlinear 
Hebrew-Eng., with Notes ; King James Version and 
Revised Version in margins ; and with Hebrew 
alphabet and Tables of the Hebrew verb. Cloth, $4 : 
half leather, $5 ; Divinity Circuit, $6.00. 
Hinds & Noble^s Hebrew Grammar. $L00. 



Dictionaries: The Classic Series. Half morocco. Espe- 
cially planned for students and teachers in colleges 
and high schools. Up to the times in point of 
contents, authoritative while modern as regards 
scholarship, instantly accessible in respect to arrange- 
ment, of best quality as to typography and paper, 
and in a binding at once elegant and durable. 8x5>^ in. 
French-English and English-French Dictionary, 

1 122 pages. $2.00. 
German-English and English-German Dictionary, 

1 1 12 pages. $2.00. 
Latin-English and English-Latin Dictionary, 941 

pages. $2.00. 
Greek-English and English-Greek Dictionary, 

1056 pages. $2.00. 
English-Greek Dictionary. Price $1.00. 
Dictionaries : The Handy Series. "Scholarship 
modern and accurate; and really beautiful print." 
Pocket Edition. 

Spanish-English and Eng.-Span., 474 pages. $1.00. 

Ttalian-English and Eng.-Ital., 428 pages. $1.00. 

New Testament Lexicon. Entirely new and 

up-to-date. With a fine presetitatioii of the 

Sytionyms of the Greek Testaf/ient. $1.00. 

Liddell & Scott's Abridged Greek Lexicon. With new 
Appendix of Proper and Geographical names. $1.20. 

■White's Latin-English Dictionary. $L20« 

White's English-Latin Dictionary. $L20. 

White's Latin-English and Eng.-Lat. Dictionary. $2.25. 

Casserly's Latin Prosody. New Edition. 60 cents. 

Brooks* Historia Sacra, with First Latin Lessons. Revised, 
with Vocabulary, Price 50 cts. This justly popular 
volume besides the Epitome Historice Sacr^, th<' 
Notes, and the Vocabulary, contains 100 pages of 
elementary Latin Lessons, enabling the teacher to 
carry the pupil quickly and in easy steps over the 
ground preparatory to the Epitome Historise Sacroe. 

Brooks' First Lessons in Greek, with Lexicon. Revised 
Edition. Covering sufiicient ground to enable the 
student to read the New Testament in the Greek. 50c. 

Brooks' New Virgil's Aencid, -with Lexicon. Revised. 
Notes, Metrical Index, Map. With Questions. $L50, 

Brooks' New Ovid's Metamorphoses, with Lexicon. 
E.xpurgated for mixed classes. W\\.h Questions. $1.50. 



What Shall I Do? 50 profitable occupations. $1.00 

Going to College. By Professor Barbe of West Virginia 
University. Says The Evangelist: "Glows with 
the enthusiasm of a high ideal. We wish it could be 
in the library of every high school, seminary, and 
academy in the land." Inspiring! 50 cents. 

The Scholar's A B C of Electricity. Can you explain the 
simple phenomena of electricity? Do you hate to ap- 
pear ignorant of the very simplest facts regard- 
ing the telephone, the telegraph, the electric light, the 
dynamo, the trolley? This book states the facts in 
clear words devoid of technicalities, and in entertain- 
ing style. No need to study or commit to memory; 
just to read it is to understand. SO cents. 

Lessons on Practical Subjects. Of public interest. 50 cents. 

Who's Who in Mythology? 1000 mythological char- 
acters briefly described. Identifies and locates 
itistanter every god and goddess, hero and myth that 
are likely to be broached either in conversation, 
sermon, song, drama, painting or statuary. 75ccnts. 

Who's Who in History? 1000 classical characters and 
allusions briefly explained. Locates the places, 
identifies the persons, describes the things, which are 
constantly alluded to in literature, on the rostrum and 
platform, in sermons, in paintings, in sculpture and 
in conversation. 75 cents. 

How to Study Literature. A novel, a poem, a history, a 
biography, a drama, an oration, a sermon, or any 
other literary production, if read or studied as this book 
tells one how to read and study, becomes a subject 
which one can discuss or write about in a thoroughly 
intelligent and comprehensive way. Enables you to 
talk about a book as if you had really sized it up 
completely. Just the thing for literary societies, 
reading circles, the casual reader, as well as for 
teacher and pupil ; also for any one who desires to 
retain a symmetrical impression of the books he reads. 
Five editions in Jirst Jive months. 75 cents. 

Lessons on Manners, Mrs. Dewey. 75 cents. 

Lessons on Morals. Mrs. Dewey. 75 cents. 

The Virtues and their Reasons. Every-day ethics for 
school and home. Guidefor parent and teacher. $J,00, 

Character Building. Inspiring suggestions. $1.00. 

Bookkeeping Blanks at 30 cents per set. Five blank books 
to the set. Adapted for use with any text-book, 
— Elem., Practical, or Com. School. Used everywhere . 

Bookkeeping and Science of Accounts. Robertson. $iuu. 



Preston Papers 



A book brimming over with new thoughts — new ideas. 
A recital of actual schoolroom experiences in which all 
the common and uncommon Pedagogical diflSculties are 
met and remedied. 

Written by a teacher of many years* experience whose 
heart and soul and life are absorbed in her work. 

It will stimulate you to renewed exertion. It is full of 
practical hints and suggestions which will help to solve 
the problems (not found in textbooks) which daily con- 
front and perplex the busy, conscientious teacher. 

It treats exhaustively of the important subjects of 

Government Environments 

Punishment Health 

Responsibility Whispering 

Examinations Manners 

Prize Givir^ Dress 

Management Overwork 

It shows the best way to teach Geography, Grammar* 
Penmanship, Spelling, Reading, Primary Arithmetic* 
and Composition. 

It contains chapters on Teachers* Reports, the School 
Museum, and Teachers' Examinations. 

This book will help lighten teachers' labors. Reading 
Circles are introducing it in every State. Would you like 
to see a copy ? We will send it prepaid and allow you tO 
return it if you wish to. 

Price to Teachers, $.80 {Regular Price, $lMii» 

* HINDS & NOBLE, PoMishcrs 

31-33-35 West J5th Street - - New York C3ty 
School Books <>/ Ail Publishers »t Ont Sti>r€ 



Twentieth Century 

Educational Problems 



A book bearing this title should suggest many 
thoughts to many minds. The teacher who has his 
heart in his work has his heart in the hope, too, that 
PROGRESS, already the keynote of the glorious new 
century, will also be its consummation, and toward 
that consummation he longs to contribute his loyal 
best. Will such a book help him ? The preachtr, 
being also a teacher, will ask himself whether such a 
book will answer some of the many questions which 
h-e must be prepared to help his young men and young 
women to decide, his charges, upon whom more and 
more in these days the question of getting an educa- 
tion presses with ever increasing insistence. The 
legislator must confront these problems, and they are 
pressing upon him, too, with even more dogged insis- 
tence. The citizen cannot escape the issue — it is th4 
subject of moment most vital to the welfare of his 
children and their children. 

The particular problems which engage the author 
of our book may be inferred from the chapter titles: 

I. The Relation of Church and State to Educa- 
tion. 
II. The Genuine University. 
III. Opinions Concerning the University. 
IV. Progress toward the University Idea. 
V. The Development of the University Illustrated. 
VI. The Province of the College. 
VII. Opinions Concerning the College. 
VIII. The Typical College, 
IX. Relation of Public High School to College. 



X. The Academy, or Fitting School. 
XI. Correlation of Church Schools. 
XII. Uniform Requirements for Degrees. 
XIII. Visions and Dreams. 

The author's treatment of these topics furnishes 
much good reading of a sort not only to interest every 
teacher, preacher, legislator, and citizen, but also to 
enlist his public spirit, his patriotism if, each worker 
in his own field, he is devoted to his work, and loyal 
to that greater cause, his country's progress. 



Twentieth Century 
Educational Problems 

BY A. C. MILLAR 

President of Hendrix College 

cxoTH— $i.oo Postpaid — cloth 

Going to College 

By Waitman Barbk, A.M., M.S., Assistant to the 
President of West Virginia University. Cloth. 50 cts. 

"Mr. Barbe's book is written in a clear and fas- 
cinating style, while the enthusiasm of a high ideal 
pervades it all. We wish it could be in the library of 
every high school, academy and seminary in the land; 
better yet, every principal and teacher may safely 
recommend it to their students as early as these im- 
portant views of life can be seriously considered. — The 
Evangelist, New York. 

HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers of 

The Perceptionalist, $2.00. 

Stout's Manual of Psychology, $1.50. 

Mackenzie's Manual of Ethics, $1.50. 

Welton's Inductive Logic, $2,00. Deductive, $1.60. 

Gordy's New Psychology (^/or teachers) %-l.i^ 

3J-33-35 West 15th Street New York City 

Schoolbooks <if all publUhert at one ttore. 



Practical Subjects 

CLOTH — Price 50 cents Postpaid — twelvemo. 
To how many of the following questions can you give off-hand, 
a clear, straightforward, and reasonably complete answer? If you 
are a parent, how about your children? If a teacher, how about 
your pupils ? Every citizen should be able to answer these questions. 

What is Barter ? What is a Tax ? 

What is Money ? High and Lovi' Taxes ? 

Silver Question ? 'What is a Corporation — 
How did Paper come to be Mills ? 

used in Place of Coin ? 'What is a Corporation — 
What are Greenbacks ? Railroads ? 

■What is Irredeemable Paper What is a Strike ? 

Money ? and What are Debt and Saving ? 

Bluebacks ? What are Savings Banks ? 
What are United States Bonds ? Endowment Orders, 1895 ? 

Will the ability to name the vegetable and mineral products of 
Uruguay and Turkey be as useful to a boy throughout life as a 
knowledge of such subjects as those named above ? The elementary 
education of our children is designed to include those subjects which 
will best fit the majority for practical life as citizens. With most 
children practical life begins when they leave the grammar school. 
The question as to course of study is chiefly one of selection; and 
should we not consider whether, in our public schools, certain of 
the more practical studies are not sometimes crowded out for the 
less useful ones? 

It is universally conceded that a great body of our voters lack 
knowledge of even the simple laws underlying the questions of the 
day. Many possess but a vague idea as to the source of Government 
revenues; and, resulting from this, there exists that widespread semi- 
impression that the Government has unlimited supplies of money, 
and that no harm can befall from a lavish expenditure of this public 
money. Now by treating a few of the more practical questions in a 
way simple enough for a child to comprehend, may not our school 
children be given right ideas at the outset? Accomplish this and, 
when they are called upon in after years to vote on social or practical 
subjects, they will not be so wholly unprepared as now. 

In this book the authors in a style at once lucid and simple have 
presented thetopics above enumerated in a manner to enable children 
of grammar school age to grasp them. Following the discussion of 
each topic there are interesting questions designed to test the stu- 
dent's knowledge, and these questions are so arranged that the 
teacher in the schools may use the subject matter in any or every 
shape as material /or composition xvork which, we can assure the 
teacher public, will prove/izr more interesting while quite as profit- 
able both to pupils and teachers as the work in composition generally 
done in schools along other lines. 

Hinds & Noble, Publishers 

31-33-35 "West I5th Street New York City 

Schoolbooks 0/ all fztblishers at one store 



Character Building 

By C. S. Coler, M. S. 

Cloth, Price, $i.oo 

What we want to appear in character, we 
must put into our schools. If, as teachers and 
parents, we permit selfishness, dishonesty, and 
sham in children, we need not be surprised if we 
see these things in society and in the world. — 
From the Author s Preface. 

Contents 
I, Aims in Character Building 
IL Psychology of Character Building 
ni. Ethics of Character Building 
IV. Methods in Character Building 
V. Growth in Character 
VI. Habit, In Relation to Character Building 
Vn. Study, In Relation to Character Building 
VIII. Education, In Relation to Character Building 
IX. The Parent, In Relation to Character Building 
X. Character and American Citizenship 
XI. Inspiring Thoughts and Helps 

The following subjects have been carefully 
considered by the author : Discipline, Acquisi- 
tion, Assimilation, Appreciation, Aspiration, Ex- 
pression, Consciousness, Will Power, Conscience, 
Duty, Methods of Teaching, Habit, and Moral 
Instruction. 

Several teachers have ordered copies for their 
pupils — others have used it as a text-book in the 
class-room. One teacher ordered twenty-four 
copies to present to her graduating class. 

Dr. W. H. Scott, Professor of Ethics attd Psychology in 
Ohio State University, Columbus, O., in comvienting upon 
the merits of the book, writes: " Your book on ' Character 
Btiilding' is inspiring. I do not see how an intelligent young 
person can read it -without being lifted into the realm of 
higher ideas and noble purposes. Every teacher will find it 
full of help." 

HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 

31-33-35 West I5th Street New York Qty 

School Booki of AH Publishers at One Store 



Appropriating a Classic 

Having read a book, are you prepared to declare 
that you have made it really your own? Can you 
discuss it or write about it in a thoroughly intelli- 
gent and comprehensive way, as if you had really 
sized it up completely? 

There are many text-books on rhetoric, many his- 
tories of literature, some annotated editions contain- 
ing directions for the study of particular books. But 
so far no work has appeared which provides system- 
atic instruction in the study of literature itself, ap- 
plicable to every classic, let us say, or to any classic. 

Such a book we now have ready. It is entitled 
How to Study Literature. It is a guide to the study of 
literary productions. Taking up Narrative Poetry 
first, an outline is given, in the form of questions, 
which will lead the student to comprehend the sub- 
ject matter, to analyze the structure, to study the 
characters, the descriptions, the style, and the metre — 
of such a work for example as Tennyson's "Princess" 
or Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." Next follows 
Lyric Poetry, with questions for the study of the 
thought, the mood, the style, the metre; and sug- 
gestions for comparative study and collateral reading. 
In a similar way the drama, the essay, the oration 
and the novel are taken up, and questions given which 
will lead to a full comprehension of the work studied. 

The author is a successful teacher in one of the 
great normal schools. The book grew up in the class 
room, and so is practical in every detail, not only 
adapted for class use in schools, but also the very thing 
for literary societies, reading circles, and fireside study. 

The list of terms it contains to designate any 
literary quality or characteristic one may wish to 
describe, is alone worth having. 



How to Study Literature 

Price y^ cents, postpaid 
HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers of 

Commencement Parts (all kinds), $1.50 

Palmer's New Parliamentary Manual, 75 cents 

How to Attract and Hold an Audience, $1.00 

3W3^5 West 1 5th Street New York City 

Schoolbooks 0/ all publishers at one store 



Do YOU know HOW to Attract 
and Hold an Audience ? 



Every clergyman, every lawyer, every teacher, every 
man or woman occupying an official position, every citizen 
and every youth who is likely ever to have occasion in 
committee, or in public, to enlist the interest, to attract 
and hold the attention of one or more hearers, and convince 

them every person who ever has Co, cr is likely to have 

to "speak" to one or more listeners will find in our new 
book a clear, concise, complete handbook which will enable 
him to succeed ! 

If you have the " gift" of oratory this book will ena- 
ble you to perfect it. If you are an indifferent speaker, 
you can become a finished one by accepting this book's 
guidance. If you are a beginner, but ambitious withal, 
this book will serve you as a guide-post to success, and by 
a path escaping the many embarrassments which discourage 
the novice. 

Thorough, concise, methodical, replete with common 

sense, complete these words describe fitly this new 

book ; and in his logical method, in the crystal-like lucidity 
of his style, in his forceful, incisive, penetrating madtery 
of this subject, the author has at one bound placed himself 
on a plane with the very ablest teacher-authors of his day. 
The title of the book is 

How to Attract and Hold an Audience. 

Price $i.oo postpaid. 



HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers of 

Commencement Parts (all kinds), $1.50 

Pieces for Prize Speaking Contests, $1.25 

New Pieces for Prize Speaking Contests, $i.j5 

Pros and Cons— Complete Debates, $1.50 

Pieces for Every Occasion, $1.25 

HINDS & NOBLE 31 33 35 W 15th St. New York City 

Schoolbooki 0/ all ^ubiitkers at on4 ttor* 



The Virtues 
And Their Reasons 



Merely to mention the name of Mrs. May 
Wright Sewall, is to remind teachers of the 
Girls' Classical School at Indianapolis. But 
Mrs. Sewall has also an international reputa- 
tion for effective work not only as one of the 
leading educators of the West, but also as an 
influential and successful worker along the 
lines of woman's "present day uplifting." 
Here is what Mrs. Sewall says of one of our 
books (in a letter to its author): — 

" I have wished to write you a note of acknowledg- 
ment for the service which your book " The Virtues 
and their Reasons " has been to me. My position 
as Principal of a school, whose ambition is to be 
honest, thorough and helpful, will explain my in- 
terest in your unique book. In founding the school 

it was the intention that there should 

also be a direct recognition of the ethical nature of a 
child, and some settled plan for the development of 
right thought concerning action, and of right practice 
based upon right thought." 

" About a year ago a copy of your book fell into my 
hands. As I read it I realized that it was the first 
treatment of the subject that I had seen that could be 
presented practically to young, growing minds. I 
tried it last year, reading and discussing at least 
once a week, often twice a week, a section or so of 
the book. From the first reading my girls were as 
interested in it as in any novel that I had ever read to 

them. It was our standard pleasure last year 

It is my intention the coming year to use this book as 
a text-book. I wish you might be present . . . and 
see with what avidity your points of view are seized 
upon by young, aspiring minds." 

Such unsolicited praise from a President of 



the Federation of Women's Clubs of the 
United States is, however, but one of many 
testimonials from educators, not to mention 
both the religious and the secular press. The 
book is strictly non-sectarian, and so has been 
heartily commended by periodicals of all de- 
nominations—and no denomination. 

For example, this is what The Independnit 

says: — , . , 

" The merit which strikes us above all others in the 
book is practical pertinence. As ^ text-book for 
our schools it is a very great success." 
Then the New England Journal of Education 
says: — . , ^ . 

" It is the right thing done in the right way at the 
right time. No book has appeared this season that 
has impressed us as being so greatly needed ..... 
Covers upwards of a hundred subjects.^ every one of 
which ought to be taught in our schools." 

Tyoographically the book is so arranged, 
by topics and sub-topics, that it may be used 
equally well as a text-book and for supplemental y 
reading. In fact, while presenting method- 
ically the entire subject of every-day ethics, 
the author has avoided technical phraseology 
and unusual terms, so that the work, while 
both full and accurate, may be as easily read 
and discussed as a newspaper. 



The Virtues and Their Reasons 

THIRD EDITION— $1.00 Postpaid— CLOTH 



HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers of 

Dewey's Lessons on Manners, ?•; cents. 
Mackenzie's Manual of Ethics,:|i.5o. 

31-33-35 West J5th Street, New York City 

Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store. 



Ce$$on$ on manners 

Adapted to 

Grammar Schools, High Schools 

and Academies 



By Julia M. Dewey 

■low TO Teach Manners " anc 
Home and School." 

Cloth, i6o pages. Price, 75 cents. 



Author of " How to Teach Manners " and " Ethics for 
Home and School." 



List of Contents 
Lesson I — Manners in General. 
Lesson II — Manners at Home. 
Lesson III — Manners at School. 
Lesson IV — Manners on the Street. 
Lesson V — Manners at the Table. 
Lesson VI — Manners in Society. 
Lesson VII — Manners at Church. 
Lesson VIII — Manners Toward the Aged. 
Lesson IX — Manners at Places of Amusement. 
Lesson X — Manners in Traveling. 
Lesson XI — Manners in Places of Business. 
Lesson XII — Manners in Making and Receiving 

Gifts. 
Lesson XIII — Manners in Borrowing. 
Lesson XIV — Manners in Correspondence. 



Price /or introduction, bo cents. Will take other works on 
Manners in exchange, and make a generous allowance /or 
them. 

Hinds & Noble, Publishers 
31-33-35 West I5th Street New York City 



Ce$$on$ on morals 

Adapted to 

Grammar Schools, High Schools 

and Academies 

By Julia M. Dewey 

Author of " How to Teach Manners " and ' Ethics for 
Home and School." 



Cloth, j04pages. 



Price, 7jr cents. 



List of Contents 



Lesson I — The Study of 
Morals. 

Lesson II — Duties to 
the Body. 

Lesson III — Cleanli- 
ness. 

Lesson IV — Dress and 
Surroundings. 

Lesson V — Exercise, 
Recreation, etc. 

Lesson VI — Industry. 

Lesson VII — Economy. 

Lesson VIII — Honesty. 

Lesson IX — Truthful- 
ness. 

Lesson X — Time. 

Lesson XI — Order. 

Lesson XII — Courage. 

Lesson XIII — Love. 



Lesson XIV — Benevo- 
lence. 

Lesson XV — F o r g i v e- 
n e ss. 

Lesson XVI — Kindness. 

Lesson XVII — Kind- 
ness to Animals. 

Lesson XVIII — Friends 

Lesson XIX — The 
Home. 

Lesson XX — The School 

Lesson XXI — The Com- 
munity. 

Lesson XXII —The 
State. 

Lesson XXIII —Self 
Culture. 

Lesson XXIV — Nature. 

Lesson XXV— Art 

Lesson XXVI — Reading 



Price for introduction, bo cents. Will take other works on 
Morals in exchange, and make a generous allowance /or them. 

Hinds & Noble, Publishers 

31-33-35 West I5th Street New York City 



jilis series contains the only two-part Greek Lexicon, 

Dictionaries 

Claggfc %cx\CQ 

Especially planned and carefully produced to meet 
the requirements of students and teachers in colleges, 
high schools and academies. Modern scholarshiy, 
modem typography, modem arrangement. Beauti 
fully legible, clear type. Durably bound in half morroccc 
in a style particularly attractive. Size 8x5^ inches. 

German-English— English-German . 11 12 pages. 

Price, $2.00. 
French-English — English-French. 11 22 pages 

Price, $2.00. 
Italian-English — English-Italian . 1187 pages. 

Price, $2.00. 
Latin-English — English-Latin. 941 pages. 

Price, $2.00. 
Greek-English — English-Greek. 1056 pages. 

Price $2.00; This is the only Greek Lexicon con- 
taining both Greek-English and English-Greek 
parts in one volume Heretofore, a good Greek- 
English Lexicon, separate, h&s cost as much or 
more than this two-part Lexicon. 

The English-Greek Dictionary, 

being the Second Part of the above, bound separ- 
ately, but published at $1.00. 

Wew-Testament Lexicon. 

Greek-English. An entirely new work embodying 
notable improvements upon all similar works. 
Handy-volume size. Price, $1.00. 

Dealing as we do exclusively in School and College 
Books, we have discovered a wide demand from Teachers 
ftnd the Student Public for a scries of dictionaries, uniform 
in size, up to the times in point of contents, authoritative 
while modern as regards scholarship, instantly accessible 
iin respect to arrangement, of best quality as to typography 
s»nd paper, and in a binding at once elegant and durable. 
That the vohanes in this series are the best in all these re- 
spects, is attested by their adoption and continued use by 
hundreds of the inflluenti at colleges and preparatory schools 
tfthis country and Canada. 

Hinds & Noble, Publishe rs 
3i-33-35 West J6fh Street New York City 



A Welcome Gift in Any Home 



FOUR GREAT SUCCESSES 



Compiled by college men 

Endorsed by college presidents 

Programed by college glee clubs 

Rah-rah'd by college students 

Brothered by college alumni 

Sistered by college alumnae 

WORDS AND MUSIC THROUGHOUT 

Songs of All the Colleges 

Attractive and durable cloth binding, $1.20 postpaid 

Ntiv edit, with 104 songs added for 67 other colleges. Over 70 
college presidents have actually purchased this volume to have 
at their own homes, so they tell us, for the students on social 
occasions. Ten editions have gone into many thousands of 
homes. If you have a piano but do7iot play^ the pianola, afol- 
Lo, CECILIAN, CHASE & BAKER, and Other "piano-players" will 
play many 0/ these songs for you and your friends to sing 

Songs of the Western Colleges 

Notable and durable cloth bindiHg, ■$1.2^ postpaid 

Songs of the Eastern Colleges 

Novel and durable cloth binding, $r.2S postpaid 

Ideally complete portrayal of the musical and social side, the 
joyous side, of the student life in our Western and Eastern col- 
leges respectively. Plenty of the old favorites of a// colleges, 
while crowded with the new songs which are sung — many never 
before in print. To own all three of above books is to possess 
the most complete, the most adequate illustration ever attempt- 
ed of this phase of the genius, the spirit, of young America 

New Songs for College Glee Clubs 

Paper, j'o Cents, postpaid 

Not less than twenty humorous hits, besides numer- 
ous others, sentimental and serious. Not a single 
selection in this book but has been sune: by some glee 
club locally to the delight of an "encoring audience." 
Never before published, they are really new 

Glee club leaders will appreciate a collection every piece in 
which by the severe test of both rehearsal and concert, is 
right— ihe musical notation, the harmony of the voice parts, the 
syllabification, the rhythm, the rhyme, the instrumentation, 
and last, but not least, with audiences, the caichonativeness 

HINDS 6, NOBLE. Publishers 

3J-33-35 West J5th Street New York City 

Schoolbooks of All Publishers at One Store 



M ten (Ueelcs' Course in elocution 



By J. V. Coombs, formerly Professor of Ens^lish Literature and 
Elocution in Eureka College, Eureka, 111. Assisted by Virgil A. 
PiNKLEY, Principal of the Department of Elocution in School of Music, 
Cincinnati, Ohio. Revised and Enlarged by C. H. Harne, Professor 
of Elocution and Reading in Salina Normal University, Salina, Kan- 
sas. Cloth, 415 Pages. Price, ■$I.SS- 

Many good books on the Theory of Elocution have 
been published — choice selections are plentiful, but very 
few authors have combined, with the Essentials of Elocu- 
tion, a good variety of proper exercises for practice. In 
Part I, the author has briefly outlined the best way to teach 
a beginner to read. Part II contains a full discussion of 
Dictionary Work, the value of which cannot be over- 
estimated. Part III contains helpful suggestions to 
Teachers of Elocution. Part IV (the largest and most 
important part) contains a thorough discussion of the 
Elements of Elocution, each principle being carefully 
considered. Part V comprises a splendid collection of 
Humorous, Dramatic and Oratorical selections for prac- 
tice — the whole being an ideal work for teachers to use 
with classes which have only a brief period of time to 
devote to the subject. 

The chapters devoted to Elocution have been so 
divided that they can be easily completed by a class in 
ten wf:eks' time as follows : 

1st Week. Outline of Elocution 

2d Week. Respiration and Breathing 

3rd Week. Physical Culture (Calisthenics) 

4th Week. Articulation 

5th Week. Orthoepy (Pronunciation) 

6th Week. Vocal Culture 

7th Week. Qualities of the Voice 

8th Week. The Art of Vocal Expression 

9th Week. Gesture 

JOth Week. Gesture 

A great variety of selections, Humorous, Dramatic 
and Oratorical, illustrating the various principles studied, 
immediately follow the Lessons. These are to be used to 
test the work that is done by the class from week to week. 

Sample copies ivill be furnished to Teachers 0/ Elocution and 
classes supplied at $1.00. 



Best Methods of Teaching 
in Country Schools 

By G. Dallas Lind 



This work is not the hne-spun theory of a college pro- 
fessor, but the practical ideas of a country teacher, fresh 
from the country school-room. 

It is not a mass of " glittering generalities," but sug- 
gestions in detail as to how to teach and manage an un- 
graded school, drawn from long experience and careful 
observations. 

1. // tells hozv the teacher should conduct himsdf in rela- 
tion to his patrons and to society in general. 

2. It tells what qualifications are necessary for a good 
teacher. 

3. It tells how to apply for a school. 

4. It describes in detail the most approved and appli- 
cable methods of teaching all the branches studied in a 
country school. 

5. It gives some very practical hints about apparatus and 
school architecture. 

6. It will give you new insight into your work. 

7. It tvill lead you to see and realize more pleasure and 
happiness in your teaching than you have ever been able to get 
out of it before. 

8. It will give you the essential principles of practical 
teaching. 

g. // will tell you just what to do and how to do it, so that 
rour work will not only be enjoyable, but profitable. 

No book has ever been published containing so many 
helpful suggestions of vital interest to Teachers of 
Country Schools. 

Teachers of Town and City Schools will also derive 
much benefit from reading the Chapters on the Methods 
of Teaching. Reading. Spelliotj:. Arithmetic. Geography, 
General History. Physiology. Algebra. Natural Science. 
Morals and Manners. 



A sample copy will be sent, postpaid, to any teacher for 
^1,00 (regular price $1.25). 

HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 
31-33-35 West I5th Street New York City 



Pieces for every Occasion 

By Caroline B. LeRow 

Compiler of"A We II- Planned Course in Reading" 
Bound in cloth Price, $J^ 



Miscellaneous. 



TITLE 

A Battle, .... 

After Vacation, 

A Good Name, 

Americanism, 

As Thy Day Thy Strength Shall Be, 

A Strange Experience, . 

A Swedish Poem, . 

At Graduating Time, 

A Turkish Tradition, 

Before Vicksburg, 

Beside the Railway Track, . 

Commencement Day, 

Compromise of Principle, 

Employ Your Own Intellect, 

Failed, 

Flattering Grandma, 
Forward, .... 

Setting the Right Start, 
Slimpses into Cloudland, 
How the Ransom Was Paid, 
" I Will Help You," 
Manhood, .... 

Means of Acquiring Distinction, 
Mind Your Business, 
National Progress, 
Only a Little, 
Only a Little Thing, 
Only in Dreams, 
Our Country, 
Some Old School BookB, 
Sparrows, .... 

The Amen of the Rocks, 
The American Constitution, 
The Angel of Dawn, 
The Barbarous Chief, 
The Beautiful in Creation, 
The Coast-Guard, . 
The Daily Task, 
The Demon on the Roof, . 



AUTHOR 

Charles Sumner, 



Joel Hawes, 
Eeni~tf Cabot Lodge, 

Josephine Follarcl, 



W. D. Potter, . 
Henry Ward Beecker, 

Phillips Thompson, 



Susan CooMdge, 
Joseph Gilbert Holland, 
H. W. Longfellow, 

Wolstan Dixey, 
George K. Morris, 
Sydney Smith, 
Wolstan Dixey, 
William McKinley, 
Dora Goodale, 
Mrs. M P. Handy, 
Joseph Gilbert Holland, 
Epes Sargent, 



Adeline D. T. Whitney, 

Christian Gilbert, 
Alexander Hamilton, 
J. S. Cutler, 
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 
Timothy Bunqhi, 
Emilij Huntington Miller. 
Maria nne Farringkam, 
Josephine Pollard, 



Miscellaneous — Continued. 



TITLB AUTHOR 

The Drawbridge Keeper, . . . Henry Abbey, 
The Friend of My Heart, ... ... 

The Inquiry Charles Mackay, 

The Light-house, ... 

The Little Grave, ... 

The Little Messenger of Love, . . ... 

The Monk's Vision, .... ... 

The Old Stone Basin, .... Susan Coelidge, 

The People's Holidays, .... Maiiaane Farningham, 

The Permanence of Grunt's Fame, . James O. Blaine, 
The Silver Bird's Nest, .... .... 

The Southern Soldier, .... Henry W. Grady, 

The Unconscious Greatness of Stonewall 

Jackson, Moses D. Hodges, D. D., 

The University the Training Camp of the 

Future Henry W. Grady, 

Things to Remember, .... .... 

True Heroism, .... 

True Liberty F. W. Robertson, 

True Patriotism is Ucsillish, . . Gem-ge Wdiiam Curtis, 

" Wash Dolly up Like That," . Eleanor Kirk A7nes, 

What of That? .... 

" What's the Lesson f (ft- To-day? ' . .... 

When Grandpa Was a Little Boy, . Malcolm Douglas, 

Concert Recitations. 



Cavalry Song 

Songs of the Seasons, 

Song of the Steamer Engiue, 

Summer Storm, 

The Cataract of Lodore, 

The Charge at Waterloo, 

The Child on the Judgment Seat, 

The Coming of Spring, 

The Death of Our Almanac, 

The Good Time Coming, 

The Sorrow of the Sea, 

The Two Glasses, . 

Two Epitaphs, 

Who Is It? .... 



Edmund C. Stedman, 
Mtta E. B. Thome, 
G. B. LeRow, 
James Russell Lowell, 
Robert Southey, 
Walter Scott, 
E. Charles, 
Wilhelm Milller, 
Henry Ward Beecher, 
Charles Mackay, 
C. B. A., . . 
C. B. A., . . 
From the German, 



Selections for Musical Accompaniment. 

A Winter Song, " -S'^ Nicholas," 

Extract from Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, E. W. Longfellow, 

Hope's Song, ...... Helen M. Winslow, 

Rock of Ages, . . . ; . Ella Maud Moore, 



Selections for Musical Accompaniment— 

Continued. 

TITLE AUTHOR 

The Angelus, Frances L. Mace, 

The Concert Rehearsal, . . . Wolstan Dixey, 

The Sunrise Never Failed Us Yet, . Celia Thoxter, 

Poets' Birthdays. 

William Cullkn Bryant. 



A Bryant Alphabet, 
Extract conceruing Bryant, 



Green Riyer, . 

The Hurricane, 

The Night Journey of a River, 

The Third of November, 

The Violet, 

To William CuUen Bryant, 



Compiler, 

Rev. Henry W. Bellows, 

John Bigelow, 

George William Curtis, 

Edwin P. Whipple, 

William Cullen Bryant, 



Fitz- Greene Halleck, 



Ralph Waldo Emerson. 



A*t 

Au Emerson Alphabet, 
Emerson, . . . . 

Extract concerning Emerson, 



from " Compensation," 
" " Works and Days, 
The Concord Fight, 
TheKhodora 



Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
Compiler, 

Elizabeth C. Kinney, 
Rev. C. A. Bartol, 
George Willis Cooke, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
Protap C. Mozoomdar, 
Horace E. Scuddtr, 
Ralph Waido Emerson, 



Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



A Holmes Alphabet, 
Extract concerning Holmes, 



Compiler, 

George William Curtis, 
Charles W. Eliot, 
Wm. Sloane Kennedy, 
Rev. Ray Palmer, 
Frances E. Underwood, 
International Ode, . . . . ' Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
James Russell Lowell's Birthday Festival, " *' " 

Our Autocrat, John Greenleaf Whittier, 

The Two Streams, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 

Under the Washington Elm, . . .» 4» »• 



Poets' BirthdaYa— Continued. 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



A Longfellow Alphabet, 

t'harles Sumner, 

Extract concerning Longfellow, 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 
Loss and Guin, 

Musings, 

The City and the Sea, 



ConipUer, , 
H. W. Longfellmo, 
George William Curtis, 
Rtv. O. B. Frothingham, 
Rev. M. J. Savage, 
Richai'd H. Stoddard, 
John Greenleaf Whittier, 
William W. Story, 
H. W. Longfellow, 



James Russell Lowell. 



Abraham Lincoln, . 
A Lowell Alphabet, 
Extract concerning Lowell, 



Freedom, 

The First Snowfall, 

To James Kuisell Lowell, 

Wendell Phillips, . 



James Russell Lowell, 

Compiler, 

David W. Bartlett, 

Rev. U. R. Haweis, 

" A'orth British Review,''* 

W. C. Wilkinson, 

Fiances H. Underwood, 

James Russell Lowell, 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
James Russell Lowell, 



John Greenleaf Whittier. 



A Whittier Alphabet, 
Eitract concerning Whittier, 



The Light that is Pelt, . 
The Moiai Warfare, 
To Children of Girard, Pa., 
John G. Whittier, . 



Compiler, . , 
John Bright, 
Horace E. Scudder, 
Richard H. Stoddard, 
Frances H. Underwood, 
Rev. David A. Wasson, 
John Greenleaf Whittier, 



James Russell Lowell, 



Temperance. 

It Is Coming, ...... M. Florence Mother, 

The Cry of Personal i^i'oerty, . , Rt. Rev. Bishop Ireland, 
The Great National Scourge, . . .... 

The Temperance Pledge, . . . TJios. Francis Marshall, 

Water 

Words of Cheer, Thwnas H. Barker, 



The Seasons. 

TITLE AUTHOK 

An April Day, Mrs. Southey, 

An Autumn Day, Margaret E. Sangster, 

A Song of Waking, .... Katharine Lee Bates, 

A Summer Day, .... 

December Louisa Parsons Hopkins, 

tlarly Autumn, Dart Fairthorne, 

Faded Leaves, Alice Gary, 

Frost Work, Mary E. Bradley, 

Indian Summer, ..... John Greenleaf Whittier, 

January, Mosaline E. Jones, 

June, .... 

May, .... 

November, Hartley Coleridge, 

October, William Cullen Bryant, 

September, 1815, William Wordsworth, 

Talking in Their Sleep, .... Edith M. Thomas, 

The Spring, Mary Howitt, 

The Voice of Spring, .... Mrs. Eemans, 

Winter, Robert Southey, 

Flowers. 

A Bunch of Cowslips, .... .... 

A September Violet .... 

Chrysanthemums, ...... Mrs. Mary E. Dodge, 

Daffodils, Bobert Herrick, 

Ferns, ... 

Flower Dreams, ... 

Golden Rod, Lucy Larcom, 

No Flowers ... 

Oh, Golden Rod W. L. Jaqnith, 

Ragged Sailors ... 

Koses, ... 

Sweet Peas, ... 

The Daisy, John Mason Good, 

The Golden Flower, .... Oliver Wendell Eolmes, 
The Message of the Snow-Drop, . . .... 

The Trailing Arbutus John Gfreenleaf Whittier, 

The Wild Violet Hannah F. Gould, 

To the Dandelion James Russell Lowell, 

Lincoln's Birthday. 

Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, 

Abraham Lincoln's Place in History, . Bishop John P. Newman, 

Abraham Lincoln, the Martyr, . . Henry Ward Betctier, 



Lincoln's Birthday- 



-Continued. 

AUTHOR 



TITLE 

Address of Abraham Lincoln, 

Lincoln, .... 

Lincoln's Birthday, .... Ida Vose Woodbury, 

The Religious Character of President 

Lincoln Eev. P. D. Ourley, D. D., 

Washington's Birthday. 



Crown Our Washintrton, 

George Washington 

Original Maxims of George Washington, 

Oar Washington, 

The Birthday of Washington, 
The Character of Washington, 
The Faith of Washington, . 
The Memory of Washington, 
The Twenty-second of February, 
The Unselfishness of Washington, 
The Washington Monument, 

Washington, 

Washington a Model for Youth, . 
Washington's Birthday, .... 
Washington's Fame, .... 
Washington's Training, 

Arbor Day. 

Arbor Day History, 

Every-day Botany, 

Song of Arbor Day, 

Song of the Maple, 

Plant a Tree, . 

The Cedars of Lebanon, 

The Little Brown Seed in the '. 

The Pine Tree, 

The Song of the Pine, 

The Tree's Choice, 

Three Trees, . 

What Do We When We Plant the Tree? 



Hezekiah Butterworth, 



Eliza W. DurMn, 
Rufus Choate, 
Henry Cabot Lodge, 
Frederic R. Uoudert, 
E. Everett. 

William Cullen Bryant, 
Robert Treat Paine, 
Robert C. Winthrop, 



Furrow, 



Timothy Dwight, 
Margaret E. Songster, 
As/ier Robbins, 
Charles W. Vpham, 



K. G. Wells, 
Kalheri7ie H. Perry, 
Sarah J. Pettinos, 
R. M. Streeter, 
Lucy Larcorn, 
Letitia E. Landon, 
Ida W. Benham, 



James Buckham, 
Grace B. Carter, 
Charles H. CrandaU, 
Henry Abbey, 



A Ballad of Heroes, 
Army of the Potomac, 
Between the Graves, 
Decoration Day, 
Decoration Hymn, . 
Flowers for the Brave, 



Decoration Day. 

Austin Dobson, 



Harriet Prescott Spofford, 
Wallace Bruce, 
William H. Randall, 
Celia Thaxter, 



Decoration 'D%j— Continued. 

TITLE AUTHOR 

Flowers for the Fallen Heroes, . . E. W. Chapman, 

For Our Dead, Clint07i ScoUard, 

Little Nan, .... 

Memorial Day Margaret Sidney, 

Ode for Decoration Day, . . . Henry Peterson, . 

O Martyrs Numberless, .... .... 

Our Comrades, .... 

Our Heroes* Graves, .... .... 

Our Honored Heroes, . . . . S. F. Smith, 

Sleep, Comrades, Sleep, . . . E. W- Longfellmu, 

Ttie Heroes' Day, .... 

The Silent Grand Army, . . . E. M. H. C, 

Tbe Soldier's Burial, .... Caroline Nortoiit 



Flag Day. 



No Slave Beneath the Flag, 

Ode to the American Flag, 

Our Cherished Flag, 

Our Flag, . 

" Rally Round the Flag! ' 

The American Flag, 

The Flag, 

The Flag of Our Country, 

The Flower of Liberty, 

The Stars and Stripss, 



George Lansing Taylor., 

Joseph Rodman Drake, 

Montgomery, 

Henry Ward Beecher, 

A. L. Stone, 

Henry Ward Beecher, 

Henry Lynden Flash, 

Robert C. Winthrop, 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, 



July Fourth. 

A New National Hymn, . . . F. Marion Crawford, 

" Fourth of July," J. Fierpont, 

Freedom's Natal Day, .... Elizabeth M. Griswold, 

The Declaration of Independence, . John Quincy Adams, 

The Nation's Birthday, .... Mai-y E. Vandyne, 

rhe New Liberty Bell H. B. C, . 

The Principles of the Revolution, . Josiah Quincy, . 

Labor Day. 

Idleness a Crime, Hem'y B. Carrington, 

Knights of Labor, T. V. Poivderly, 

Labor, Rer. Orville Dewey, 

No Excellence without Labor, . . Willia7n Wirt, 

Opportunity to Labor, .... Thomas Brackett Reed, 

The Dignity of Labor .... 

Toil, .... 

Work, Thomas Carlyk, 



Thanksgiving. 



A Thanksgiving Prayer, 

For a Warning, . . , 

Give Thanks, .... 

Harvest Hymn, 

How the Pilgrims Gave Thanks, 

Our Thanksgiving Accept, . 

Thanksgiving, 

" Among the Greeks, 

" " " Jevre, 

" for His House, . 

" Hymn, 

Ode, . 

Thanksgivings of Old, . 

That Things are No Worse, Sire, 

The First Boston Thanksgi vin<;— July, 

The First English Thanksgiving in 

York 

The First National Thanksgiving, 
The First Thankgiving Proclamation 

Issued by George Washington, 
The Day of Thanksgiving, . 
The Old Thanksgiving Days, 
Washington's Proclamation, 



AUTHOR 

C. B. Le Row, 

John Oreerileaf Whiiiier 

W. D. Howells, 



Robert Herriek, 

John Oreenleaf Whittier, 
E. A. Smvller, 
Helen Hunt Jackson, 



1631, 
New 



Henry Ward Beecher, 
Ernest W. Shmtleff, 



Christmas. 

A Christmas Thought, .... Lucy Larcom, 

" " about Dickens, Bertha S. Scranton, 

' Question, . . . Rev. Ilinot J. Savage, 

A Merry Christmas and A Glad New Year, George Cooper, 

A Schemer, Edgar L. Warren, 

A Secret, Mrs. G. M. Howard, 

A Telephone Message, .... .... 

Bells of Yule, Alfred Tennyson, 

Christmas Bells, H. W. Longfellow, 

" in Olden Time, . . . Sir Walter Scott, 

" Roses, May Riley Smith, 

Ode on Christmas, J. E. Clinton, 

Old Christmas, .... 

"Quite Like a Stocking," . . . Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 

The Day of Days .... 

The Christmas Peal Harriet Prescott Spofford,, 

The Little Christmas-Tree, . . . Susan Coolidge, 

The Little Mnd-Sparrows, . . . Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 

The Merry Christmas-Time, . . George Arnold, 

The Nativity, Louisa Parsons Hopkin$, 

The Star in the West Hezekiah Butterworth, 



New Year's. 



TITLE 

Address to the New Year, 

A New Year, . 

A New Year's Address, 

A New Year's Guest, 

Another Year, 

Dawn of the Century, 

Grandpa and Bess, 

'New Year's Day, 

'New Year's Kesolve, 

Next Year. 

One More Year, 

On the Threshold, . 

Ring, Joyful Bella! 

The Book of the New Y»'n,r, 

The Child and the Year, 

The New Year, 

The PaBsiag Year, . 



AUTHOR 

Dinah Mulock Craik, 
Margaret E. Songster, 
Edward Brooks, 
Eliza F. Moriarty, 
Thomas O'Hagan, 
AnnaH. Tliorne, 
E. Huntingdon Millert 



Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 

Nora Perry, 

A. Norton, 

A. n. Baldwin, 

Violet Fuller, 

Celia Thaxtti, 
George Cooper, 



Commencement Parts# 

CLOTH — Price $1.50 Postpaid — twelvemo 

Here is a book full of the real thing, and con- 
taining nothing but the real thing! 

The models here — every one a complete address 
— are not composed by the compiler to show what 
he would say if he should happen to be called on for 
a class poem, or an ivy song ; a valedictory, or an 
oration; a response to a toast, an essay, a recitation, or 
what-not. Not at all! But every one of the "efforts'* 
in this book is real — in the sense that it is what some 
one did do on the particular occasion when he actu- 
ally had to stand up and speak. This entitles them 
to be designated models in a genuine sense. 

If you are called upon, for any occasion (no 
matter what) during your whole high-school or college 
career, and wish a model to show how some one else 
- has risen to a similar opportunity, we think you will 
discover by a glance at the list of contents of Com" 
mencement Parts some illustration of exactly what 
you require. Note also the lists of class mottoes, 
subjects for orations, essays, themes, toasts, etc 

Besides the above we publish also the following, of interest to 
those who have to ' ' appear in public on the stage. ' ' And we can't 
think of any "effort" throughout one's whole career that is not 
provided for — from the little tot's first curt'sy, and along through 
the school and college years, to the debate of important civkt. 
problems by the adult before his fellow citizens : — 

Pros and Cons. Both sides of live question^;. $I.50L 

Playable Plays. For school and parlor. $1.50 

Colles:e Men's Three-Minute Declamations . 81.00. 

College Maids' Three-Minute Readings. $1.00. 

Pieces for Prize-Speaking Contests. $1.00. 

Acme Declamation Book. Paper, 30c. Cloth, 50c. 

Handy Pieces to Speak, 108 on separate cards. 60c. 

List of "Contents" of any or all of above free on request if you 
mention this ad. 

HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers, 
31-33-35 "W. istli Street, New York City. 

Schoolbooks of all ptiblishers at one store. 



Contents of ** Commencement Parts." 

). Introduction to Commencement Parts* 

2. The Orator and the Oration, 

(a) The Orator. 
[d) The Oration. 

(c) The Parts of the Oration. 

3* Commencement Parts. 

( / ) A Latin Salutatory. De Nostro Cum Aliis Civitatibus 

Agendi Modo. 
(2) Orations. 

(a) American Ideals. 

(d) Culture and Service. 

(c) Education as Related to Civic Prosperity. 

id) Hebraism and Culture. 
e) Marc Antony. 
/) Modem Knighthood. 
{g) The Negro and the South. 
(A) The Decisive Battle of the Rebellion. 
[i) The University and True Patriotism. 
(j ) The Discipline of Life and Character. 
(/e) The Liberalistic Temper. 
(/) The Spirit that Should Animate, 
(w) Reveience Due from the Old to the Young, 
(j) Appropriate Subjects for the Oration (1-136). 
(^) Valedictories. 

(a) " Perduret atque Valeat" (Latin). 

(i>) Service. 

(<r) For a Dental College. 

(d) For a College. 

(e) For a School. 
(/) For a College. 
(g) Good Day. 

LIBERALISM. 
(5) Mixed Valedictory and Oration : Catholicity, 

4* Class Day Exercises. 

( /) Introduction. 
(.?) Class Poems. 

(a) O Years You Have Vanished. 

(d) The Breath of the Spirit- 

(c) Home. 

(d) A Vision. 

(e) Alma Mater. 
(j) President's Address- 
(^) Salutatory, 



4. Class Day Exercises {coniimicd'). 

(5) Dux's Speech. 

(6) Ivy Oration. 

(7) Class Song. 
{8) Ivy Oration. 
(9) Class Will. 

{jo) Ivy Oration. 

(//) Ivy Poem, 

(12) Ivy Song. 

(/j) Class Oration— The Old and New. 

{14) Washington's Birthday Oration. 

(/f) Presentation Oration. 

(/6) Class Oration — Abraham Lincoln. 

(77) Class Mottoes (1-42). 

5, The Composition and Essay. 

(7) Introductory Suggestions. 

(a) Model Outline of Composition 

(^) Model Outline of Essay. 

(f) Brief Essay. 
(2) Compositions. 

(a) Autumn. 

[b) What Makes the Sky Blue? 
(f) The Beauties of Nature. 
{d) Winter Leaves. 

(?) Essays. 

(a) Beatrice. (Character Study.) 

(b) Independent Character. (Descriptive.) ^ 

(c) Ruskin's " Ethics of the Dust." (Critic?. ; 
{d) Edward Rovvl and Sill. (Literary.) 

(e) Intellectual Improvement, an Aid to the Im- 
agination. (Philosophical Disputation.) 
(/) The^Survival of the Fittest in Literature. 

(Literary Discussion.) 
(^) ««Una." (Analytical.) 
(h) Thomas Chatterton. (Prize College Essay.) 
(j) Kipling's Religion. (Literary.) 
( ;■) The Reaction Against the Classics. (Colloquy.) 
(k) Memory's Message. (Dedicatory.) 
(/) Manual Training and Intellectual Develop- 
ment. (Normal School Prize Essay.) 
(;«) True Nobility. (A College Prize Essay.) 

(^) Subjects for Composition, 
(rt) Narrative (i-35)- 
(b) Descriptive (i-55). 

{j) Themes for Essays (1-53). 



6* After-Dinner Speaking;, 

(/) Introductory SugjTestions, 

(^) An Address of Welcome at an Alumni Dinner (In 
Honor of the College President). 

(3) Response to a Toast, " Yale and Princeton." 

(j:) Response to a Toast, " The Puritan and the Dutch- 
man." 

(5) Response to a Toast, " The Plain People." 

(6) Response to a Toast, " ^Voman. " 

(7) Response to a Toast, " A Business Man's Political 

Obligations." 

(5) Response to a Toast, " The Sovereignty of the United 
States. ' ' 

(9) Response to a Toast, " Recollection the Strongest In- 
fluence." 

(10) Response to a Toast, "The Future of the Nation." 

(11) An After-Dinner Story. 
(/_') A List of Toasts (1-40). 

7. Flag Day. 

(7) Introduction. 

(.2) Recitation for a Roy or Girl. 

(j) Recitation — Our Country. 

(^) Recitation — The Stars and Stripes, 

(5) Address — Old Glory. 

(6) Address — The Voice of the Flag. 



8. Words of the National Airs. 

(/) Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. 

(.2) Hail Columbia. 

(j) America. 

(4) I'he Star-Spangled Banner. 

(j) Our Flag is There. 



Speeches for National Holidays. 

(/) Independence Day Address. 

(2) Lift up Your Hearts. (Fourth of July.) 

(j) Lincoln the Immortal. (Lincoln's Birthday.' 

(/) Wasnington' s Birthday Address. 

(5) Washington's Birthday. 

(6) Tree Planting. (A Poem for Arbor Day.) 

(7) Decoration Day Address. ' 
(S) Memorial Day Ode — Our Honored Dead. 



10. Occasional Addresses, 
(/) Religious. 

^^a) Growth. An Address before a Christian 

Endeavor Convention. 

((5) To be Kings among Men. A Chapel Ad- 
dress by a College President. 

(c) TheCultureof the Imagination. Address be- 
fore a Young Men's Christian Association. 
^2) Political. 

(rt) The Cross of War. Delivered in the Con- 
gress of the United States. 

(^i) Heroesof the " Maine Disaster." Delivered 
to the National House of Representatives. 
(j) Social. 

{a) The Obligations of Wealth. A Washington's 
Birthday Address. 

(b) An Address to Northern and Southern Vet- 

erans at Chickamauga. 
(3) An Address before the Order of Elks. 

(c) A Poem for a Silver Wedding. 

(^) An Address at the Dedication of a Memorial 

Tablet. 
(^) Presentation of a Flag to a Regiment Depart- 
ing for War. 
(/) Presentation Address to a Foreman by a 

Workman. 
{.^) Educational. 

(,/) The Higher Education. An Address before 

a Body of Educators. 
(/') Dedication of a School Building. An Address 

of Welcome. 
(r) Wealth and Progress. An Address at the 

Dedication of a Public Building. 
((/) An Address on Presenting the Keys of a New 

School Building. 
(^) An Address to a School Graduating Class by 

a Teacher. 
(_/■) Remarks to a Graduating Class of Young 

Ladies by a Visitor. 
(g-) An Address to a Graduating Class of Nurses, 
(/i) Address to a School Graduating Class by a 

Clergyman. 
(?) Dedication of a Public Library. 
(7) Address to a Graduating Class by a Financier. 
(/£) Address before an Educational Convention. 

Foreitrn Influence upon American Uiii« 

versity Life. 



10. Occasional Addfcsscs {continued). 

(/) Success in Life, An AddresS before a Busi- 
ness College. 

{m) Address before a College Graduating Class. 

(«) Inaugural Address of a President of a Uni- 
versity, 

{o) An Address on Receiving the Degree of 
Doctor of Lavi^s from a University. 

(/>) The Presiding Oflicer s Address at a College 
Debate. 

i^q) The Influence of the Great Teacher. An 
Address before College Alumni. 

{r) Response of a College Professor to a Compli- 
mentary Resolution. 

(5) Festival Days. 

('?) A Thanksgiving Speech. 

{b) A Thanksgiving Day Address. 

( <: ) An Exercise Around the Christmas Tree, 

('/) A Mock Menu for a March Banquet. 

(e) A Banquet Menu. 

( f) A Thanksgiving Song. 

(6) Miscellaneous Abstracts. 

{a) At the Dedication of a Hall of Science and 

Art. 
(/5) Response to a Toast, <' Noblesse Oblige. "-= 

^Phi Beta Kappa Banquet.) 
{(f^ Grand Army Speech. 



Pros and Cons 

lH irmative and the Negative of the Questions Of Th 
in the form of 

Complete Debates 



CLOTH — Price $1.50 Postpaid — twelvemo 

Something new, something practical, something up-to-date. 
A book that exactly fits into these last years of this wonderful 
last decade of the passing century. 

Besides giving complete directions for the organization and 
the conduct of Debating Societies in accordance with parliamen- 
tary procedure, this book in many of its debates presents the 
speakers as actually addressing their hearers from " the floor," 

each speaker in turn with his arguments the first speakers 

for the affirmative and the negative in turn ; then the second 
speakers in turn ; in some cases, the third speakers ; and then 
the summing up by the leaders. 

The array of arguments thus marshalled constitutes an intelli- 
gent and intelligible statement of every principle and every fact 
affecting the questions debated, thus providing not only an ex- 
haustive study of each question enabling a thorough mastery of it 
for knowledge sake, but also furnishing a thoroughly instructive 
and decidedly lively and entertaining program for an evening' 
pleasure and profit. 

Among the important topics discussed are the following : — 

Government ControL Immigration. 

Our Foreign Policy* The License Question. 

The Tariff. The Suffrage. 

The Currency Question. Postage. 

Transportation, Our Commercial Policy. 

And many others. 

There is also a list of "questions" suitable /or debate, several of 
which are " briefly outlined," to assist the student to prepare and to 
deliver his own " effort." 

Essays and orations, many of them suitable for commencement 
parts. Salutatory and Valedictory addresses, supplement the debates, 
the whole providing for the student at college and the high-school 
scholar, the parent at home, and the man of affairs, just that equip- 
ment that one needs not only for thinking out the questions that every- 
body is talking about, but for arguing them in a convincing manner. 

HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 
31-33-35 West I5th Street New York City 

Schoolbooks of All Publishers at One Store 



Contents of '^Pros and Cons.* 



SECTION 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 



How to Organize a Society, 
Rules Governing Debates, 
Introductory Observations, 
Political Economy, 



PAGB 

I 

12 

15 

24 



Questions Fully Discussed in the Affirmative and the Negative. 

V. Resolved, That the Single Gold Standard Is for 
the Best Interests of the Country, 

Should Cuba be Annexed to the United States? 

Resolved, That the Fear of Punishment Has a 
Greater Influence on Human Conduct than 
Hope of Reward, ..... 

Resolved, That the United States should Adopt 
Penny Postage, ..... 

Resolved, That High License Is the Best Means 
of Checking Intemperance, 

Should the Government of the United States 
Own and Control the Railroads ? 

Should Hawaii have been Annexed to the U. S. ? 

Resolved, That Woman Suffrage should Be 
Adopted by an Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, .... 

Resolved, That the World Owes more to Navi- 
gation than to Railroads, - . . . 

Resolved, That the United States should Build 
and Control the Nicaragua Canal, 

Resolved, That Tariff for Revenue Only Is of 
Greater Benefit to the People of the United 
States Than a Protective Tariff, 

Resolved, That the Expensive Social Entertain- 
ments of the Wealthy Are of More Benefit 
than Injury to the Country, 

Resolved, That the Hypocrite I? '\ More Des- 
picable Character than the Liar, 

Resolved, That the Government of the United 
States should Own and Control the Tele- 
phone and Telegraph Systems, . 
Resolved, That the Average Young Man of 
To-day Has Greater Opportunities to make 
Life a Success Financially than His Fore- 
fathers, ....... 199 

Ts Immigration Detrimental to the United States? 206 
Are Large Dept. Stores an Injury to the Country? 219 



VI. 
VII. 



VIII. 



IX. 

X. 

XI. 
XII. 



XIII. 



XIV. 



XV. 



XVI. 



XVII. 



XVIII. 



XIX 



XX. 
XXI. 



28 
61 



77 

86 

94 

106 
122 



127 

135 

148 



160 



172 
179 



185 



Contents of **Pros and Cons/' 



oBCTION PAGE 

XXII. Should Greenbacks Be Retired and the Gov- 
ernment Go Out of Its Present System 
of Banking? ..... 232 

XXIII. Resolved, That Our Present System of Tax- 

ation is the Best that Can Be Devised, 250 

XXIV. Should the President and Senate of the U . S. be 

Elected by Direct Vote of the People? 258 
XXV. Resolved, That It Is Not Good Policy for 
the Government of the United States to 
Establish a System of Postal Savings, 2S6 

Questions Outlined. 
XXVI. Resolved, That It is for the Best Interests 
of All the People for the Government to 
Own and Control the Coal Mines, . 318 
XXVII. Resolved, That Trusts and Monopolies Are 
a Positive Injury to the People Finan- 
cially, ...... 327 

^XVIII. Resolved, That Cities should Own and Con- 
trol All the Public Franchises Now 
Conferred upon Corporations, . . 337 
- XXIX. Resolved, That Education as It Is Now 
Thrust upon our Youth Is Dangerous to 
Health and Good Government, . 351 

XXX. Resolved, That National Banks should Be 

Abolished, 358 

XXXI. Resolved, That Bi-metallism and Not Pro- 
tection is the Secret of Future Pros- 
perity, ...... 366 

Subjects for Debate. 
XXXII. Two Hundred and Fifty Selected Topics for 

Discussion, ..... 376 

Addresses for Salutatory, Valedictory, and other occasions. 
XXXIII. 
XXXIV. 
XXXV. 
XXXVI. 
XXXVII. 
XXXVIII. 
XXXIX. 



XL. 



Oration — Decoration Day, 

Essay — February 22, .... 

Salutatory — Life, ..... 

Oration — Fourth of July, .... 

Valedictory, ...... 

Address — Christmas Eve, .... 

A Temperance Address — The Nickel Behind 

the Bar, 

Essay — Coait Defenses, .... 



401 
407 
420 
426 

434 

440 



444 
450 



Of Two Hundred Books 

On Pedagogy 

There is none we would sooner put 
into the hands of a young teacher 

To many young teachers, ' ' pedagogy " was and is a 
verm to conjure by ; its acquisition repi'esents hours of 
hard, dry reading and study ; life's pleasures say " don't," 
duty says "do"; and between the conflict of desires, the 
course is frequently decided by the first book which is 
attempted. It must be confessed that much that is found 
under pedagogy were better never read by the young 
teacher, but seeley's foundations of education is not 
so accounted. The book is for young teachers, and its 
conception and execution are admirable. Philosophy, 
experience, illustration are blended in an exceedingly 
interesting manner. No teacher, young or old, but will 
have a hip^her conception of his work after reading the 
book. It is an inspiration, it is practical, it comes from 
a man who knows what he wants to say and how to say it. 
The young teacher who begins a course of reading with 
this book, must read others, because of interest awakened 
and stimulated by Doctor Seeley. Of two hundred books 
on pedagogy on our shelves, there is none we would sooner 
put into the hands of a young teacher. — Education 
{Boston), April, igo2. 



The Foandations of Education 

BY LEVI SEELEY, PH. D. 

Author of " History of Education" 
Pro/essor of Pedagogy in the Neiu Jersey State Normal School 



CLOTH — Price $1.00 Postpaid — twelvemo. 



Hinds & Noble^ Publishers of 

Gordy's New Psychology, $1.25 
Stout's Manual of Psychology, $1.50 

3J-33-35 West I5th Street New York City 

Sclioolbooks of all publishers at one store 



APR 80 1903 



